When Director and Star are the Same Person, the Results are Often Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (4 March 2012)

Generally speaking, it is not a good idea for an actor to double as both director and star of the same film. Orson Welles did it, and was good at it, but he was a special case. And Jodie Foster had a qualified success with LITTLE MAN TATE, but her character was on the periphery of much of the story.
With BRAVEHEART, Mel Gibson, an actor of exceptional presence rather than talent, has bitten off more than he can chew, and the result is a bloated and overlong mixed bag of moments, some quite good and others simply dreadful, rather than a coherent film.
This highly fictionalized biopic of 13th century Scottish hero Sir William Wallace is, almost predictably, at its most engaging when it is dealing with things that either never actually happened or are not in the historical record. The first hour of the film is the most compelling part: Wallace as a child (James Robinson) loses his father in some unspecified act of war; after the burial, his uncle Argyle comes and takes him to someplace in Europe (Rome?). During the funeral, a little girl, who cannot seem to take her eyes off William, approaches him and hands him a flower.
Years pass and Wallace returns to Scotland, fully grown and played by Gibson, intending nothing more than to settle down and raise crops and a family. To that end he seeks out Murron, the girl who gave him the flower, now a lovely young woman who still carries the memory of Wallace, who also remembers her and wants to marry her. As a token, he gives her the flower, which he has kept all this time.
Meanwhile, in England, King Edward I is scheming to conquer both Ireland and Scotland. He decides to reinstate primae noctis, a custom whereby an English nobleman may have sex with a newlywed woman under his rule, as a way of subjugating the Scots, whom he fears are getting too rebellious. (This is the movie's first big goof: the English never used primae noctis in Scotland.) Wallace and Murron marry in secret to avoid the English, but Murron is acccosted by one of them anyway; he attempts to rape her and she fights him off; Wallace puts her on a horse and she attempts to escape, but she is caught and her throat cut before Wallace can do anything to stop it.
The funeral scene is quietly devastating. Gibson's finest moment may well be when he falls on his knees before Murron's father, who had not given permission for the marriage. The older man clenches his fist for a moment, then gently places his hand on Wallace's head as the young husband and the parents grieve together.
Unfortunately the rest of the movie is nowhere near as good as what has gone before, and worse, there is too much of it. We've already been watching for over an hour; Gibson decides to drag it out for two more, and most of the two ensuing hours contain protracted battle scenes and a lot of milling about. There's a subplot involving the English king's supposedly homosexual son (Gibson's homophobia is a bit obvious here; the Prince and Princess of Wales actually managed to have children) and his young wife, who appears to form a relationship of sorts with Wallace (this also never happened since the king's son did not marry until both the king and Wallace were dead).
That's probably the worst thing about this film; Gibson plays fast and loose with the historical facts because he wants to sell tickets, and the result is an overly commercial film obviously designed to showcase its star and attract the sort of audience that likes war movies.
I don't understand the Academy sometimes; this isn't a terrible film, but it certainly wasn't a candidate for Best Picture. In fact, once his young bride is killed and buried, a good portion of the rest of the film is one big yawn.