When his secret bride is executed for assaulting an English soldier who tried to rape her, Sir William Wallace begins a revolt against King Edward I of England.
Mel Gibson shot a lot of “Braveheart” in my homeland of Ireland. The constant pouring rain in Scotland forced them to move to Ireland where the weather was much more accommodating for the production. In the end, for the most part, you cannot tell the difference between the two countries because their landscapes are pretty much identical. Mr. Gibson began filming his movie in 1994 and a friend of mine was offered a small part in it and he said he could get me a part if I wanted because he was on good terms with the casting director but alas, seeing me in a kilt was not meant to be as it was the year I moved to the U.S. When the film came out the next year, however, I was initially disappointed with it. Not with the movie itself but with the hype that surrounded it, with so many people saying it was the best movie ever made. When a film is surrounded by that much hype, it can ruin it for you because you go in with such high expectations and when they are that immense, nothing can live up to them. So I didn’t watch it again until Paramount recently sent me a review copy on 4K. If you have not upgraded to 4K yet, I would highly recommend it, the picture and sound quality is noticeably far superior to Blu-ray, even though Blu-ray is technically HD. It’s a personal preference in the end but one I would highly suggest.
In the year 1280 AD, after the death of Alexander III, the King of Scots, and with no heir to the throne, King Edward I of England (Patrick McGoohan) invades and conquers the country. Young William Wallace witnesses, firsthand, the brutality and barbarism of the English soldiers against his older brother and father, and after their deaths, his uncle Argyle Wallace (Brian Cox), takes him away to Europe on a pilgrimage, where he learns about foreign cultures and languages. Years later, grown up, Wallace (Mel Gibson) returns to the small village where he once lived and falls for his childhood friend, Murron MacClannough (Catherine McCormack). He expresses interest in her to her parents but they initially refuse, unaware of his intentions. With King Edward having invoked Prima Nocta, whereby the right was given to English Nobles, allowing them to sleep with a woman on the first night of her marriage, Wallace and Murron wed in secret, even her parents unaware. When an English soldier in their village notices how close they have become, he waits for Wallace to leave and then grabs Murron and tries to rape her, with several other soldiers watching on. She fights back, punching him in the face and tries to escape but is quickly captured and publicly executed. When Wallace hears of this, he makes his way back into town, fighting off the small English detachment in the village and publicly executes the soldier who killed his wife, for all to see.
When his fellow villagers and childhood friends stand by his side, they take on a garrison in Lanark and wipe them out. Word begins to spread throughout the land and soon other clans join up with Wallace and his men in taking on the English. King Edward hears about Wallace and tries to put a plan in motion but before he can do so, Wallace and his men fight his armies at Stirling Bridge and eventually make their way to York where Wallace kills Edward’s nephew and sends his severed head to him in a basket. Princess Isabella of France (Sophie Marceau), the wife of King Edward’s son, Prince Edward, who was forced into a loveless marriage, hears about Wallace, and that his crusade against the English started when they murdered his wife and one true love but then Edward takes it upon himself to volunteer her to meet with him and that he might be more open to negotiation with a woman. She agrees, hoping to come face to face with the man who took on the world after his love was taken from him and almost immediately, they are smitten with each other. Wallace sees much of his late wife in Isabella, her strength and determination, while she becomes enamored with Wallace, infatuated with a man that would kill everyone for taking his wife. They fall for each other and meet several more times but while many of the clans support Wallace, some fear that his actions will bring forth the wrath of Edward who will send the full force of his armies so they go behind his back and conspire to have him captured. Given the choice to have a quick death, if he submits to the king, he refuses and is subject to torture, including being hanged until almost dead and drawn and quartered. Just before he is decapitated, Isabella whispers in King Edward’s ear that she is pregnant with Wallace’s child and not his son’s and that his bloodline will be destroyed forever. Edward, who is now terminally ill and who cannot talk, succumbs to a heart attack and dies. Wallace’s men continued to fight the English and eventually won their freedom.
Before this, Mel Gibson had only directed one other movie, “The Man Without a Face,” in 1993, a low-budget drama in which he also starred. In the behind-the-scenes extras included here, Gibson states that none of the major studios would take a chance on him, even though at that time, he was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. He originally only wanted to direct it but in order to get it made, Paramount offered to finance it if he starred in it as well. He obliged, and the rest, as they say, is history. Gibson went on to win an Oscar for Best Director and Producer and began a second career as a very unorthodox director, helming such titles as “The Passion of the Christ,” “Apocalypto,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” and the recently announced follow-up to Passion, “The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection.” Gibson infuses “Braveheart” with a feeling of old Hollywood, akin to sprawling epics such as “Ben-Hur,” “Spartacus,“ and “El Cid,” the film Gibson states inspired him to want to make “Braveheart.” I have to give kudos to Gibson because instead of utilizing some of Hollywood’s biggest names as potential co-stars, he employed some of the best working actors from Scotland, England, and Ireland, including Brendan Gleeson, Brian Cox, Patrick McGoohan, Tommy Flanagan, Catherine McCormack, David O’Hara, and French actress Sophie Marceau. They all lend an authenticity that bigger names could have very well overshadowed. Cinematographer John Toll, who also won an Oscar for his efforts, presents Scotland is astonishing widescreen, bestowing on us the beauty and magnificence of the Scottish Highlands. Gibson, in the starring role, brings a lot of earnestness and gravitas to his performance, after all, this was the beginning of Scotland’s independence but he also reminds us that while much of what transpired in the story was astringent, he also allows characters to have some levity. In a movie this big and meaningful, that is a necessity.
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