Braveheart. - movie reviews

National Review, July 10, 1995 by John Simon

Braveheart is another film directed by its star, Mel Gibson. Close on the heels of Rob Roy, this is the second tribute to a legendary Scottish hero, this time round William Wallace, the great medieval warrior leader. Though less clever than its predecessor, it is much grander in its nearly three-hour epic sweep.

The obvious comparison is with Henry V (the Olivier, not the Branagh), and even though Randall Wallace may not be quite so good a screenwriter as Shakespeare, the movie can hold its own. Randall Wallace calls himself the spiritual descendant of William Wallace, and he has deftly incorporated the not many known facts about his namesake, and addressed the legend with gusto and eloquence. The result is an epic that, a few excessively romantic touches notwithstanding, is more realistic than most. These medieval Scots live in ferocious-looking hovels, seem (at least the men) heroically unwashed, and have coiffures in which a kestrel could nest. The friendly punches with which they communicate could easily kill a lesser fellow -- an Englishman, say. Braveheart aims to be a thinking man's epic. ``It's our wits that make us men,'' young William's da tells him, and, after da and big brother are killed by the English, Uncle Argyll continues the boy's education along similar lines. Pretty soon William has turned into Mel Gibson, a young man who wants to settle down and live in peace. But the English are making things hard, what with such things as ius primae noctis (in the film, more tersely but less correctly, the prima nocte) giving the English magistrate the right to deflower each lassie on her wedding night. Braveheartrending business, that. Finally William secretly marries the bonniest of lasses, Murron -- played by the breathtakingly beautiful and talented Catherine McCormack -- but the English get wind of it, and when she won't put out for them, slit her throat in a shattering scene irradiated by Miss McCormack's performance. So William turns avenger and, by one small further step, leader of the Scottish populace (as opposed to the nobles, suborned by Edward Longshanks, the Machiavellian English king). There are plots and counterplots as the nobles sabotage William's efforts, and Robert the Bruce, who wants to help him, is prevented by his leprous father (well played by Ian Bannen), who expects the nobles to crown his son king. And much, much more. The love scenes are so-so, the political scenes ho-hum, but the fighting -- both individual contests and mass battle scenes -- is first-rate, barbaric, and sublime. You might think that so much battle stuff would pall after a while: how much slashing, chopping, stabbing, and skewering -- not to mention mangling and incinerating -- can there be without diminishing returns? Quite a bit; Gibson, to give him his due, comes up with new forms of warfare, better ways to turn charging men and horses into shishkebabs, new modes of battering down castle gates in a rain of boiling pitch from the battlements, fresh tricks to outsmart the enemy. And whereas this much violence with modern weapons would be unbearable, with medieval arms it becomes heroic and exhilarating. There is something appealing about Mel Gibson -- the ruggedly masculine countenance, the quick half-smile, the knack of conveying blue-eyed hurt (as when he discovers the Bruce under an enemy helmet), and a squarer-jawed determination than Dick Tracy's -- that sustains Braveheart even through the unlikely scenes with Isabelle, the Princess of Wales (indifferently played by Sophie Marceau), and through the Wallace's -- or the Gibson's -- unconvincing displays of polyglotism. Add to this the beauties of Scotland, searchingly chronicled by John Toll's inexhaustible camera, the solid supporting performances among which Patrick McGoohan's sardonic-sadistic Edward I is especially noteworthy (never before have terminal consonants been drawn out to such ironic length), and the intelligently deployed music by James Horner. A Scottish acquaintance, George Campbell, questions the use of the sweeter uilleann (Irish) bagpipes rather than the fiercer Highland ones during the battle scenes, but these scenes are so exciting Horner could have used marimbas and I wouldn't have noticed. The film put me in mind of a four-line poem by Scotland's greatest modern poet, Hugh MacDiarmid: The rose of all the world is not for me. I want for my part Only the little white rose of Scotland that smells sharp and sweet -- And breaks the heart. And that is high praise.