Braveheart (1995)

reviewed by
Cameron Shelley


                                   BRAVEHEART 
                       A film review by Cameron Shelley
                        Copyright 1996 Cameron Shelley
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This review is available on the WWW at URL:
   http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~cpshelle/Reviews/braveheart.html
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Cast:
       Mel Gibson (William Wallace), Catherine McCormack (Murron),
       Patrick McGoohan (King Edward I "Longshanks"), Angus McFadyen
       (Robert the Bruce), Sophie Marceau (Princess Isabelle)
Writer:
       Randall Wallace
Director:
       Mel Gibson
Producer:
       Mel Gibson, Alan Ladd Jr., and Bruce Davey

In retrospect, I should have seen Mel Gibson's Braveheart when it was out in theaters. Having failed to do that, however, I finally got around to renting it a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, seeing this film on the small screen with a single, little speaker did not produce the sense of epic grandeur that this film obviously aimed at. After all, these big budget, star-studded, action-packed period flicks are all about dressing up, talking funny, and grinding the mad-cow beef of evil into the mincemeat of justice! (Yes, I've been watching "The Tick," but I do think that these film epics work with the basic emotions or not at all.) It's interesting, isn't it, that just having Mel Gibson in a picture makes it count as "star-studded?"

Braveheart does indeed work on the "basic" emotions, love, anger, lust, and loathing mostly. William Wallace is an angry young man, fresh from a tough childhood and tempered by a continental education. Onscreen, we witness the obligatory childhood traumas that will explain why Wallace is such an unyielding guy: His father is treacherously murdered by the English, hung from the rafters of a barn. After this, we know his life will be dedicated to making life in Scotland as miserable as possible for the English occupiers. At his father's funeral, he meets Murron, his future wife. They are both mere youngsters, but the focus on their brief interaction assures the viewer they will be together soon. What we aren't shown are his subsequent travels on the continent with his relatives, where he picks up French, Latin, and a civilized intellect. Upon returning to Scotland, Wallace elopes with Murron (to avoid the egregious law enacted by King Edward that gives the local English noblemen the right of "first night" with new brides) and professes a desire to raise some kids and some crops. Fat chance!

Getting the character development out of the way like this did not provide a very compelling opening for the movie. Basically, almost every B-grade martial arts flick begins with a similar sequence: The evil warlord burns down the young man's village, murders his parents (with an option to rape his sister and shoot his dog), and then waits 20 years for the young man to grow up, master Kung Fu, and come to get him. Braveheart's developmental sequence is not so trite, but it shares the property of getting any character motivation fixed early so that the audience can just sit back and enjoy the kicks, punches, and witty banter. This is fine for B movies, but I think it is ultimately counterproductive in Braveheart.

There are other options. You could use flashbacks, or possibly just have characters refer significantly to past events and let the actors' reactions speak for themselves. If I recall, Rob Roy used this latter technique quite well to explain why Rob was so stubbornly honorable. In any case, the setup makes the rest of the plot feel rather inevitable - the way events unfold seems relentlessly foreordained, which becomes annoying during a picture with a three hour runtime. Wallace is understandably angry when the English murder his doomed wife, and unswervingly pursues them with an army all the way to York. Frankly, the simple inflexibility of his character made Wallace's constant occupation with "freedom" seem more like an idee fixe than a noble frame of mind. At a guess, I would say that the character of Wallace was written to be ambiguous: either a zealot the way the English and Scottish nobles saw him, or a sympathetic patriot the way the Scottish commoners saw him. It is difficult to play a sympathetic zealot, however, and I think the problem was that Gibson sometimes sounded like a zealot while acting like the sensitive, heartthrob type.

While I'm complaining, I'll just add that I found the handling of Robert Bruce a bit bothersome too. I appreciate the contrast between him and Wallace: Wallace's father died early and inspired his son, whereas Bruce's father clung unnaturally to life (or so it appeared) and served only to poison his son's spirit. Freud would certainly be nodding his head knowingly at Bruce's predicament - sons must separate from their fathers to have a healthy adulthood. But the half-shift in focus from Wallace to Bruce late in the film was distracting in nearly inexplicable, at least if you didn't already have some idea of the role the actual Robert Bruce played in Scottish history. In Braveheart, Wallace's execution, Christlike, redeems Bruce from his role as a Scottish Judas and shows him that he must carry on the good fight. But Bruce's introduction and development are accomplished somewhat laboriously by simply having the camera follow him around here and there. When this is finally over, Bruce becomes more interesting and ultimately extracts himself from the backpocket of King Edward, changing himself from a leaf in the tide to a leader.

This review does little justice to the good points of the film, but most other reviews I've seen (and they've been out for a while now too) do an adequate job of this, so I figured some criticism was in order. As a spectacle, Braveheart is well executed without being stagey or treacly, and the battle scenes, I think, epitomize this quality of the film. But the general lack of depth in the characters is made too apparent by a conventional development and some unfocussed, lingering direction. Better to see it on the screen, perhaps, where you can always enjoy the setting when the pacing wanders a bit.

cpshelle@watarts.uwaterloo.ca - Phone: (519) 888-1211 x2555 Me: http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~cpshelle> CEL: http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/>


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