Historically biased, but still a good film

Rating: 6/10 (22 January 2006)

As a "blockbuster" US film of nearly 3 hours long it is visually interesting and has a number of superb and gory battle scenes. A number of scenes are highly sentimentalised and improbable for my taste,the killing in the woods by Gibson with his sons, culminating in the tomahawk attack on the redcoat in the river, the massacre of the townsfolk in the burning church and the highly emotionally charged speech of Anne Howard, earlier in the film, in the church, shaming the men folk into rallying for the cause. Women of this time wouldn't have done that; it would take another 200 years of change in society for young women to be able to come close to doing anything like it.
The British are filmed as a murderous, butchering race with a complete lack of morals, mainly down to the portrayal of Col. Tavington. There is a sense of British fair play in the form of Cornwallace but this disappears as quickly as his dogs, when he realises the colonials have duped him on the prisoner exchange. Gibson, as an actor, doesn't seem to like the British too much, revelling in this Braveheart in leather knee britches outing.
Well worth watching as a film, but should be viewed with your tongue placed firmly in your cheek and your disbelief in its highest suspension!