A Good Movie Which Could Have Been Great

Rating: Null/10 (3 November 2001)

Mel Gibson's movie "Braveheart" is a nice crowd-pleaser. The producer, director and screenwriters of this film had in their hands a perfect opportunity to make a GREAT timeless masterpiece. The movie has a larger-than-life hero, heroic acts of numerous Scottish men, epic battles and an easy-to-hate foe. (What more do you expect?) However, they ganged up on this great idea and reduced it merely to an above average movie. I wonder what they were thinking.
When making so-called `historical' epics, many Hollywood writers have a tendency to rewrite, warp, sentimentalize, melodramatize and generally dumb up history. In the process, the story lines often deviate from the real history so much that the movie is not historical anymore. These screenwriters must think that an average moviegoer is too dumb to understand or appreciate the complexity and subtlety of history. Randall Wallace, the screenwriter of this movie, did exactly that: grossly rewrote history, deprive the script of subtlety and generally dumbed up the script.

SLIGHT SPOILER IN THIS PARAGRAPH!!! IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ IT, JUMP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. Many people have heavily criticized this movie for its gross historical inaccuracies. I agree wholeheartedly. Many aspects of William Wallace's life are shrouded in mystery. Until recently, most historians relied almost exclusively on the biographical poems about Wallace by the15th century Scottish minstrel Blind Harry as the primary source. However, the movie's script grossly deviates even from what little modern historians know about William Wallace. These are some examples: 1) Why was the Battle of Stirling Bridge portrayed without a bridge? A small bridge played a crucial role in this English defeat. 2) Why was Wallace's atrocities committed in Northern England totally omitted from this movie? Wallace and his men committed numerous acts of atrocities--including rape, pillage and massacre--after invading Northern England. 3) The movie omits the crucial role William Wallace's brothers played in William becoming one of the leaders of Scottish liberation movement. 4) The movie unfairly portrays Robert Bruce as a back stabber even though there is no extant historical evidence to indicate that Robert Bruce betrayed William Wallace. There are many other examples of historical inaccuracies but are too numerous to be listed here.
As many people have already commented, this movie lacks subtlety just like many other Hollywood movies. Unlike the complexity of real life, most issues in this movie are conveniently all black and white. For example, most characters are divided into all-bad villains and all-good heroes. Just like the Imperial forces in "Star Wars," the English are the totally evil villains while the Scots were bunch of fierce but virtuous freedom fighters. Edward Longshank, the English king, is portrayed as an evil and greedy tyrant similar to Darth Vader while Sir William Wallace is portrayed as a somewhat naive but virtuous freedom fighter similar to Luke Skywalker. The extant record shows that real history is not simple black and white like this. Historically Edward Longshank was indeed a greedy and ambitious ruler, but he did show many instances of magnanimity and generosity. As stated earlier, William Wallace was a flawed man. He was a fierce freedom fighter but committed numerous acts of atrocities.
The scriptwriters must have thought that all moviegoers have to be reminded again and again ad nauseum that "freedom is beautiful" and "invasion and occupation of foreign nations are bad." I think we all got the message after the first or second time. But the movie seems to go on and on pounding into our heads the same message with the repeated portrayals of English brutality and victimization of the Scottish population. If the screenwriters want to keep on stating the message after the first or second time, they should have done it more subtly from the third or fourth time.

There are some aspects of the movie which salvaged it from being a total failure. Mel Gibson did an admirable job of playing William Wallace. Even though he is about one foot too short to play William Wallace (Wallace was reputed to be almost seven feet tall ), Gibson tried and somewhat succeeded in recreating the charisma of this Scottish freedom fighter. It is too bad that Gibson created an indelible image in the mind of some of the moviegoers that he is a shoot-them-up, blow-them-away action star by playing Mad Max three times in the `Mad Max' series and Sgt. Martin Riggs four times in the "Lethal Weapon" series. However, he is a much, much more competent actor than action stars like Stallone, Schwarznegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. In terms of acting talent he is closer to late Lord Lawrence Olivier than to these four amateurs who have the temerity to call themselves "actor." Some people have commented that Mel Gibson focused too much attention on himself in this movie. He did focus lots of attention on himself, but he is the star of this movie for crying out loud! I think Mel Gibson focused attention on himself only to the extent of what is expected of the star of a movie. However, the greatest acting accolade should go to Patrick McGoohan for his portrayal of the evil tyrant Edward Longshank. He skillfully portrayed this evil but determined ruler. This accomplished thespian's acting skill just awed me. Only McGoohan's vast acting talent, which added depth to the character, salvaged Edward Longshank from being a one-dimensional 14th century version of Darth Vader.
The novice director Mel Gibson did a very competent job of choreographing the battle scenes. Unlike most of the 1950's and 1960's Hollywood epic movies, Gibson portrayed the battle scenes with realistic gore and brutality, the way battle scenes should be portrayed.

This is a good movie which greatly pleased the audience. To be honest, I like this movie. However, if the movie was made with a better characterization of various characters, subtlety of expression and better historical accuracies, it could have been a GREAT movie.