Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedommmmmmmmmmmm!!!

Time for yet another review so this is one that easily stands as one of the most popular historical films in recent times, which is Braveheart, directed by Mel Gibson, who gives his account of the life of Scottish legend William Wallace who played his part in gaining Scotland's independence from England.  And with that let's do the usual.....

OK so the story begins in 1280 with King Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan) of England having invaded and conquered Scotland.  William Wallce as a young boy survives the deaths of his father and brother and witnesses Longshanks treachery as village leaders were found hanged.  Wallace is taken away by his Uncle Argyle (Brian Cox) to Rome where he will be educated.  Years later Wallace returns to Scotland as a man (Mel Gibson) to find that under Longshanks rule, he has permitted the Scottish noblemen lands and privileges, but also sexual rights to an English lord with a newly wed Scottish woman on their wedding night.  Wallace soon falls in love with his childhood sweetheart Murron (Catherin McCormack) whom he marries in secret to avoid the English lords claiming their sexual rights with her.  The day after however one of the English guards tries to rape Murron, but Wallace prevents it.  However Murron is captured then executed publicly in order to provoke Wallace, who then kills the English garrison along with the help of the local villagers.  Wallace also sends the garrison occupying Lanark back to England and warns them that Scotland's daughters as theirs no more.

Meanwhile Longshanks is furious on hearing the news and insists that his son and heir, Prince Edward (Peter Hanley) do everything he can to stop Wallace, however the Prince is weak minded and inexperienced.  Edward is married to Isabella of France (Sophie Marceau) but he is also involved in a homosexual relationship with his military counsel Phillip (Stephen Billington).  Wallace's rebellion in the meantime grows as he gains more Scottish followers and he soon leads his army to victory at the battle of Stirling against the English.  Wallace also goes on to invade the English on their home soil at York, where Longshank's nephew is beheaded and his head is sent back to Longshanks, who then decides to send Isabella to negotiate with her.  Wallace meets with Isabella but refuses to accept any bribes from Longshanks, but Isabella begins to develop feelings for Wallace, as she inspired by his passion for his country.

On returning to Longshanks Isabella discovers that Longshanks has set an army in place to invade Scotland, and she secretly dispatches her aide to warn Wallace.  Wallace then meets with the Scottish nobleman and insists they stand together and fight against the English, but the noblemen are reluctant to do so.  However one of the noblemen, Robert the Bruce (Angus MacFadyen) who is a contender for the throne is intruiged by Wallace and gives his consent to unite the clans and the other nobleman.  At the battle of Falkirk however the nobleman Lochlan and Mornay betray Wallace on the battlefield, and the Scottish lose the war, and Wallace as he charges on a horse toward Longshanks, he is stopped by one of the king's lancers, who turns out to be Robert the Bruce, but Bruce soon helps save Wallace from the English capturing him.  After the battle Wallace begins to wage his own war against the English and he also fights his own fight with the Scottish nobleman as he continues to try and achieve the dream of having a country of their own.

Braveheart is no doubt a very entertaining historical drama and it tells an important story in history about Scotland's battle for independence from the tyranny of the English.  The film is of course somewhat guilty of historical inaccuracies in the storytelling and I will get to some of them in a bit, but what Mel Gibson does depict in the film is of course done for cinematic and drama effect.  But with Braveheart, Gibson does show he has an aptitude for creating historical epics on a big budget and he manages to make the film very accessible to audiences.  The film itself was shot on location in Scotland, but the battle scenes were in fact filmed in Ireland, with Gibson also using nearly 2,000  extras who were Irish army reserve.

Getting onto the performances (the usual structure as always) they are all excellent with Mel Gibson giving a fine portrayal of the heroic Wallace, who also remains somewhat tormented by his past, and the deaths of his father, brother and his beloved Murron, but is willing to fight and die for his country.  He also portrays Wallace as an educated man who also can speak different languages.   Gibson has several highlights in the film, the main one that comes to mind is when he rides the battlefield at Stirling prior to engaging with the English, and he delivers his stirring speech to the Scottish locals who have turned up.  This scene also features an amusing line when one of the Scotsmen says "William Wallace is supposed to be seven feet tall!" and Wallace replies "yes so I've heard.  Kills men by the hundred, and if he were he would consume the English with fire from his eyes and lightning bolts from his arse!".  Also there is memorable line "would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance to come back and tell our enemies that they can take our lives, but they will never take our FREEDOM!!!".  His scene near the beginning when he playfully plays a game of rock throwing against his childhood friend Hamish, is funny as Hamish throws a big boulder past him and Wallace stands still, and then Wallace takes a pebble and hits Hamish right in the forehand with it, as Hamish dazed falls to the ground.  Gibson also has a great scene where the Scottish nobleman all squabble with one another after Wallace is knighted, and he says "you think the people of this country exist to provide you with position.  I think that position exists to provide those people with freedom.  And I go to make sure that they have it."

The supporting cast is also very good starting with Patrick McGoohan as the cruel king Edward Longshanks, who has several highlights in the film, and his clipped delivery and commanding tone makes for an intimidating figure.  McGoohan has some good lines such as near the start when during a military meeting he says "the trouble with Scotland is that its full of Scots!".  Also later on when he is on the battlefield at Falkirk and his army have defeated the Scottish, he says "bring me Wallace, dead? Alive?  Just as good!".  Sophie Marceau is also quite good (and fine!) in her role as Isabella, although in the end she just serves more a romantic subplot for Wallace as the two of them become involved with one another.  Brendan Gleeson is excellent in his role as Hamish (and ironically is an Irish actor!) who is Wallace's childhood friend, and becomes one of his key allies in fighting the English.  And Catherine McCormack (who is actually English!) is not bad in her part as Wallace's Scottish bride, who falls foul of the wrath of the English, although she just serves her part as one of Wallace's romantic subplots. 

Angus MacFayden however is probably the weak link in the cast as his potrayal of Robert the Bruce is far from commanding and he comes across more a meek figure, and even at the end of the film where he is about to lead his army on the field at Bannockburn he still doesn't make for a strong figurehead for a king.  Nevertheless MacFayden has a couple of excellent scenes as Bruce with his father, Robert the elder (played superbly by Ian Bannen) as the two of them argue over their position on Wallace and the Scottish noblemen.  And despite the fact it is a wildly inaccurate scene in history it is still quite an effective moment when Wallace attacks the Lancer only to find it is Robert the Bruce who has betrayed him at Falkirk.  David O'Hara is also really good in his role as Stephen the demented Irishman, who provides some funny moments (again the irony here is that O'Hara is Scottish yet he plays an Irishman!).  O'Hara as Stephen has quite a few good lines especially when he first meets Wallace and he laughs and says "This can't be William Wallace.  I'm prettier than this man!" and later on the battlefield at Striling O'Hara turns to Wallace as they shield themselve from an arrow volley attack and he says "the good Lord thinks he can get me out of this, but he's pretty sure you're fucked!".  O'Hara also just after he meets Wallace saves him from being killed by a new Scottish recruit, and he says to Wallace after "are you not sure the almighty sent me to watch your back? I never liked him anyway, he wasn't right in the head!".  

Mel Gibson also does a fine job with the action of the film although it has to be said he does overdo the slow motion sequences during the battle scene at Stirling and also the moment where Wallace is about to attack the English garrison on horseback in his village.  But his visual sense and staging of the action scenes are quite spectacular (also thanks mainly to John Alcott's stunning cinemaphotography) and the bloody violent battles are impressive, which include plenty of hacking, slashing, stabbing, as well as decapitating (well it is a war film after all!).  The film's score by James Horner is also quite good, but it is somewhat guilty of being overly romantic and sentimental at times, and Horner uses the uilleann Irisih pipes as opposed to the traditional Scottish bagpipes, which suggests the film has bigger Irish heritage than a Scottish one, but overall it is still a good effort.

Now getting onto the film's flaws and niggles, well there are naturally quite a few historical inaccuracies in the film.  Starting with Wallace's relationship with Isabella of France, which in reality never happened as that time Isabella was only three years old and lived in France.  Robert Bruce is also shown to have betrayed Wallace on the battlefield of Falkirk in the film, but according to history there was no record that Bruce had betrayed Wallace directly, even if he did switch allegiances between both sides in the early years of the war for independence.  Prince Philip who was potrayed as a weak and ineffectual gay man, but in reality the Prince was in actual fact a married man with children, although it was rumoured that he did have relationships with other men, and he also married Isabella at a time when he was already crowned as King Edward II.  This was also an accussation aimed at Gibson in this potrayal of the prince as it was deemed as being homophobic by the media, although Gibson himself claimed it wasn't, and that Longshanks was purely a psychopathic personality who took some pleasure in tormenting his son, also seen in the scene where Longshanks throws Philip's military counsel out a window.  Longshanks was also to been rather tight fisted with money, as he seems to grudge Isabella for giving the bribe money for Wallace to the poor.  Although this was also another historical inaccuracy as Longshanks was reputed in reality to have been a generous man who gave to charity, who in fact died during a campaign rather than in bed from fever as depicted in the film.

There were also criticisms levelled at the film for being somewhat anglophobic (fear and hatred of English people) especially in its depiction of Longshanks as such a loathsome king, and also for having strong Anti-English senitments.  And its difficult to try and level these criticisms when the film itself deals with the English and how they dominated the Scottish at that time, and it was all about the fight for independence, its difficult to potray the English in such a positive light in that regard.  

So all these inaccuracies are bound to show up in one way or another and in the end Gibson had to create a film that was accessible to an audience and when you try make a film to please the masses its maybe tough to keep it true and accurate.   Plus the Scottish war for independence was a long and complex battle and it would also be difficult to condense down into a three hour film.  Also the screenwriter Randal Wallace said that the screenplay was inspired by an epic poem written by Blind Billy, a minstrel, who wrote the poem based on Wallace's life, but the poem itself also has various historical inaccuracies, so that in itself may account for alot of the historical discrepancies in the film.
 
But despite all that Braveheart still remains a very entertaining and at times enthralling movie, which while it is not perfect it still engages an audience, and that's what Gibson ultimately set out to do here.

So that's it for my look at Braveheart, and I will leave it there for nooooowww.