A stunning visual kaleidoscope of Celticism

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 1999)

I was skeptical about this film at first. Quite a lot of me is Celtic "under my kilt", so to speak, and I have long looked forward to a narrative which demonstrates the yoke that our people have long had to suffer under the thumb of the watchful eye of the English jackboot. However, previous valiant efforts by the likes of Billy Connolly have always ended up selling out to the English Paymasters. This film is different. From the first stirring sounds of the Celtic pipes being fingered nimbly by their dextrous pipemen, I felt my heart leap some distance up my rib-cage. Although I am hardly an athlete (I watch a lot of videos), I almost felt at one with Mel Gibson as he triumphed over the effeminate nastiness of the English Lie with his big, vicious sword. Curse you, damnable hypocrites! UP THE SCOT!!! That's what this film makes you feel - pure, unadulterated admiration for the Aussie/Scot Wallace and his humane and fair description of the marauding English robber barons. Since seeing this film I've felt a lot better about my Scot past, even though I'm only going on a vague intuition that I actually am descended from Celts, having no actual documentary proof - but the point is, it's given me self-esteem, it's changed my world and it's helped curb those violent urges I used to have to bite on a sponge in order to suppress. This film truly speaks to the disciple of truth within all of us, the disciple that is actually one person, one huge vibrant being whose centre is You and Me existing for the moment. Truly these primitive peoples lived more intensely than in our modern-day world of couch potatodom. The use of colour in this film and the rapid editing made me feel more alive than the last time I ran a 100 metre sprint. Fantasmagoric. Truly.