"Every man dies" -- especially in Mel Gibson movies

Rating: 4/10 (28 September 2013)

In typical Hollywood fashion, "Braveheart" delivers a sturdy tagline as a sort of moral: "Every man dies, but not every man really lives." That is particularly true of Mel Gibson movies, where you can be assured that nearly everyone will die in very bloody and gruesome Medieval fashion, and that most of them won't be given the chance to really live. (Although the film's portrayal of 13th-century Scotland looks so miserable, I can't fathom why any of them would bother.)
But what about Mel? History dictates that Mel, as the eponymous -- sort of -- hero, will have to really die. But does he really live? Let's see what Mel and his screenwriter, Randall Wallace, offer as a definition of "really living":
1. William Wallace's wife is murdered the day after their wedding.
2. Wallace's rampage of revenge incites a bloody insurrection.
3. A pitched battle is fought, leading to hundreds of dead Englishmen and horses and hundreds of exposed Scottish backsides.
4. Wallace has a clandestine affair with the French princess -- who, according to history, was nine years old, but never mind.
5. Wallace is betrayed, captured, and messily tortured and executed in an extended climax that reaches a sort of feverish apotheosis with Mel screaming "FREEEEDOM" as blood and spittle flies from his lips.
Gosh. If that's what they think "really living" is all about, I've got a long way to go. Messrs. Gibson and Wallace (Randall, not William...) have settled on a rather ruthless and violent idea of what life is all about, and their concept of "freedom" seems equally brutal. Revenge, philandering, pedophilia, gory disembowelings -- is that sort of freedom really worth it?