"Certain Events Portrayed Have Been Dramatised"

Rating: 6/10 (20 July 2000)

That says it all in a way. Maybe if I had watched Braveheart alone I would have liked it a whole lot less. Yet I took this one out on video after seeing "The Patriot", my curiosity piqued to see if this was as fundamentally bad.
It isn't, of course, and watching in conjunction with that film made me appreciate this one a whole lot more. The Patriot is melodramatic, trite, sentimental and showily directed. Braveheart may have its dream sequences, stereotypical bagpipes and the odd duff line, but generally it's pretty good for Hollywoodised history. I don't even mind the fact that history has been severely distorted, either. After all, this is a film, and every film needs its heroes and villains. The picture may be entirely one-sided in it's portrayal of the Scot/English divide, but at least the "enemy" in this one get more than the boo-hiss one-dimensionality of "The Patriot".
However, while this isn't high-minded enough to be a great historical epic and isn't totally worthy of the five Oscars it received (and, while nominated for more, they were all technical, none for acting) it is sturdy, average entertainment. In fact, what makes it of note, and justifies its watchability are really just two things:
1. Patrick McGoohan, No.6 himself, having a thoroughly good time as the outrageously mad King;
2. The Scottish accents. Maybe the American audience that thought they were getting an honest historical was convinced by the laughably fake "accents". Gibson was far from the worst, incidentally. But even so, anyone who lives in the whole of the British Isles would be unlikely to sit through this film without crying tears of laughter as this Australian, would-be US actor tells us what it's like to be a Scotsman.
For those two factors alone, Braveheart is priceless.