Braveheart (1995)

Mel Gibson moons some English guys, stares dreamily off into space for three hours and instils so much courage in Brendan Gleeson he takes on the British army with a rubber axe!

Braveheart is a 1995 epic directed by Mel Gibson and starring Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson and Mel Gibson.

The vast majority of criticism I hear about Braveheart is that it’s ‘historically inaccurate’. I’m certainly critical of a few things about this film, but that’s not one of them. If I want historical accuracy, I’ll watch a documentary. I watch movies to be entertained. In this regard, Braveheart is a huge success.

Yet, this movie is one of those odd films that seems like the greatest thing ever when you first see it but when you revisit it you begin to pick up on how uncool a lot of it is. For instance I’d forgotten what a Mel Gibson love-fest it is. This is hilarious given that he actually directed it. He claims he was under duress – that the studio basically strong-armed him into starring in it himself or they’d pull the financing. Well, maybe so Mel. But then how do you explain the long, lingering close ups of…your own face!

And a helicopter shot of yourself bounding up a mountainside while an orchestral score swells and booms doesn’t really scream “ensemble picture”. This scene is supposed to be heroic and inspiring but instead it’s just incredibly silly. Particularly the fact that the rest of the Scottish rebels are nowhere to be found. So, William Wallace was just fond of taking solo jogs? Did he need some time alone? You’d think with food scarce he’d want to conserve his energy rather than dashing up hillsides to do nothing more than stare off into the sunset.

I don’t mind Mel Gibson. Sure, he’s basically Mel Gibson in everything he’s ever starred in, but he has charisma and a definite screen presence. It’s not hard to understand why he was a huge box-office draw for so long. So yeah, I’m a Mel Gibson fan, even after he went batshit crazy.

So it’s an odd paradox for me that this film starts to go downhill as soon as he appears in it. There’s a long prologue depicting William Wallace as a young boy (a sort of superhero ‘origin story’ if you will), written to give you an idea of how he became the rebel leader we see later. For me this is the best part of the film. This, and any scene with Angus McFadyen as Robert the Bruce. I believe it was he, and not actually William Wallace, who is known as the “Braveheart” in Scottish history. His story is far more interesting and I could have done with a movie about him, with Wallace either a peripheral character or not in it at all.

Anyway, Mel shows up and the first thing that’s distracting is his hair. It’s too clean. It always looks like he just took to it with Pantene and a blow dryer. Plus he plays Wallace like some kind of medieval superhero. His character arc is more a character flat line. He shows up and he’s awesome at everything – sex, strategy, diplomacy, and kicking in heads. As the film goes on, he remains awesome. Then at the end, yep, he’s still awesome.

Okay, I’m being hard on the guy. For a debut directorial effort, the film was ambitious to say the least. For the most part, it’s superbly made. The battle scenes, aside from a few continuity errors, are great. They must have been a logistical nightmare to shoot. Massive CGI battles were still a few years away in 1995, so all the soldiers here are real, and all the blood spatters are practical effects.

My favourite scene is where Robert the Bruce confronts his father, the leprous would be king of Scotland, after betraying Wallace at Falkirk. McFadyen is a superb actor, and his line delivery and emotion during this scene is just pitch perfect. He plays the tortured leader perfectly; a man torn between loyalty to what he knows is right, and duty to his country and father.

I also really like Sophie Marceau. She’s stunning, and has the most epic braid in the history of cinema. Her slutty friend is also really awesome – I love her line about Englishmen not knowing what a tongue is for.

Patrick McGoohan is also brilliant as the English King Edward “The Longshanks”. He is so slimy he practically slides rather than walks. The character would be a ludicrous caricature in the hands of a lesser actor, but McGoohan pulls it off nicely.

Steven the mad Irishman is also a favourite character. What I love about him is his unswerving loyalty to Wallace. I like that he and Hamish go to Wallace’s execution, risking their own lives but determined to stay with their friend to the bitter end.

I also get a kick out of Hamish’s dad, but not the classic scene where he punches the guy out after the wound cauterization. No, I prefer the bit where he laughs at his own son getting clocked in the head with a rock.

I guess my biggest gripe with this film is that it’s way too black and white. There’s no ambiguity. It’s the good Scots versus the evil English. The film would have been far more interesting with more grey areas. As it is, it’s an enjoyable big budget battle film and rewatchable simply for the final scene – the “I can’t believe they missed that” glaring error of a burly Brendan Gleeson charging towards the camera carrying an axe with a blade so rubbery it flaps like a flag in a breeze. Priceless.