A Spectacular Entertainment

Rating: 10/10 (7 March 2012)

Braveheart is a historical drama film directed by and starring Mel Gibson. The film was written for the screen and then novelized by Randall Wallace. Gibson portrays William Wallace, a 13th century Scottish warrior who gained recognition when he came to the forefront of the First War of Scottish Independence by opposing King Edward I of England,portrayed by Patrick McGoohan,is also known by the nickname "Longshanks".
The story begins with young Wallace, whose father and brother have been killed fighting the English, being taken into the custody of his uncle, a nationalist and pre-Renaissance renaissance man. He returns twenty years later, a man educated both in the classics and in the art of war. There he finds his childhood sweetheart Murron, and the two quickly fall in love. There are murmurs of revolt against the English throughout the village, but Wallace remains aloof, wishing simply to tend to his crops and live in peace. However, when his love is killed by English soldiers the day after their secret marriage (held secretly so as to prevent the local English lord from exercising the repulsive right of prima noctae, the privilege of sleeping with the bride on the first night of the marriage), he springs into action and single-handedly slays an entire platoon of foot soldiers. The other villagers join him in destroying the English garrison, and thus begins the revolt against the English in what will eventually become full-fledged war. Wallace eventually leads his fellow Scots in a series of bloody battles that prove a serious threat to English domination and, along the way, has a hushed affair with the Princess of Wales before his imminent demise.
Braveheart looks like a true epic -- even if it is both bloody and bloody long.A huge, bloody and sprawling epic,it is the sort of massive vanity piece that would be easy to disparage if it didn't essentially deliver.Mel Gibson, long-time heartthrob of the silver screen, came into his own as a director.As a filmmaker, he lacks the epic gift, but the movie works on a fairly basic level as a hiss-the-English medieval Western.Distractingly violent and historically dodgy, Gibson's directorial work justifies its epic length by delivering enough sweeping action, drama, and romance to match its ambition.One of the most spectacular entertainments in years.