The Gospel According to Mel

Rating: 9/10 (9 February 2007)

It's the late 13th century. Scotland suffers under the brutal occupation personified in the evil King Edward I whom American born Irish actor Patrick McGoohan plays with a diabolic frenzy, the very embodiment of iniquity. "The problem with Scotland?" Edward I muses aloud, "The Scots live there!" Among the many outrages is the institution of Prima Nocte.
Defeated and dispirited, the Scots argue best with each other. The line of Scottish kings has been broken. The claimant to the throne Robert The Bruce lacks the support of the nobles, many of whom were paid off by King Edward.
How can such a nation bitterly divided against itself produce a hero? Heroes come by strange twists of fate. In the confusion, William Wallace in a fit of rage renders a powerful reprisal to the occupier. Mel Gibson lends all his charisma and charm to the the title role.
Where the defiant Wallace urges revolution, the timorous Scottish nobility busy with wealth and titles have no interest in Freedom and Country. The noblemen try to sucker Wallace himself with the meaningless compliment 'guardian and high protector of Scotland.'
Wallace pleads with the pretender to the vacant throne, The Earl of Bruce to bypass the corrupt nobility and make his case directly to the people: "The people would follow you, if you would only lead them."
The Bruce who would succeed to the Throne may be ambivalent but Wallace does have a significant loyal following nonetheless. Brendan Gleeson later to play the dysfunctional father Stobrod Thewes in a different highlands in Cold Mountain brings strength and humor to his role as the robust swordsman Hamish Cambell. David O'Hara brings up the rear with comic relief as the crazed Irishman who threw in with The Cause.
Brilliant in the director's chair, Mel Gibson captured the intrinsic beauty of the Scottish highlands while as an actor Mel at the same time took on the heroic character of a great warrior adding to the dour Scot a breezy Lochinvar charm raising the élan of warriors steadying themselves for battle with the unforgettable battle cry 'Alba gu bragh!'
The battle scenes are frantically staged, spilling a bit too much gore in the horror and brutality of massed hand-to-hand combat for an overly sensitive US - er audience functioning with intestinal fortitude on a par with the wicked King Edward's namby pamby son of whom the evil king says:
"Who shall I sent to negotiate with this Wallace? Not my gentle son, his appearance would only encourage an enemy to take over the entire country."
Yet if Wallace's purpose is to free Scotland under its rightful native ruler Robert The Bruce, in the tangled weave of factionalism, Wallace may have become the stumbling block in The Bruce's rise to power. The movie is about Wallace but the Bruce is by far the more interesting and complex character. Angus Macfadyen born Glasgow, Scotland plays the enigmatic Bruce, ambitious yet cautious and ever duplicit.
Certainly The Bruce's battle-plan at Bannochburn, not far from Fallkirk but on better terrain for the unarmored Scottish troops, was nothing short of magnificent. However, Bannochburn and with it Scottish independence was yet in a distant future, when King Edward I marched on Scotland. Upon the English attack, The Bruce stands next to the demon Longshanks himself whom the Scotts condemn as a pagan. Keltophiles for seven centuries have tried to rationalize The Bruce's choice of friends at Fallkirk.
This film politely adopts a version of the legend which attributes The Bruce's treachery to the machinations of the leper David, Robert The Bruce's father.
Unstated in this movie is the more likely premise that for The Bruce to gain the throne Wallace must be die.
Later at Bannockburn, this movie does show The Bruce to be stroking his elbow guards embossed with the lion of Scotland with the gritty uneasiness of a newly minted butter bar lieutenant. Perhaps the explanation is simple: it takes more than a patriot to be a great leader, it take a bit of a devil.
However in the earlier battle at nearly the same spot, Bruce forgoes Wallace's invitation to lead the Scottish Kingdom. When Edward I invades to restore English rule, The Bruce stands with the enemy at Fallkirk Bridge.
There is an important historical lapse in Mel's otherwise brilliant cinematography of the apocalyptic battle at Fallkirk Bridge. Mel decided against shooting at the original site because the bridge would get in the way. "Ay," agreed a local sidewalk superintendent, "So too, the English found...."
Defeated after a spirited battle at Fallkirk Bridge, Wallace takes to the Highlands to re-stir the resistance. Betrayed on his way to a meeting with The Bruce, Wallace is taken to England to be hung drawn and quartered for treason. On the gallows, Wallace echoes that blood chilling scream: 'Freeeeedom.'
A tale of love, freedom and national pride, Braveheart uses a gentle Celtic score as a haunting counterpoint to the blood and gore.
The movie ends with The Bruce throwing Wallace's sword at the English at Bannockburn, but the story of the fight for Independence had an even more dramatic ending in the The Declaration of Arbroath 1320 in which the Scots renounced not merely England but divine right as well in the chilling words:.
"For, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule."
The line did run fallow and Scotts would be humbled at Colladen some four hundred years later, ending the independence of their kingdom until Mel revived it in 1996.