The Bruce

To be fair this film was never intended for the big screen, it was made at a time when everyone was buying DVD players and needed to stock up on cheap discs to buff up their collections! Yes it is a bad film, dubious acting, grainy film, and poor battle scenes, but give the film a break, it does have a couple of household names in it, and the history (although slanted and very pro Bruce) is at least far more favourable than its block busting, older sibling 'Braveheart'(which this film is obviously a low budget cash-in of!). Bruce is played competently by Sandy Welch, who portrays the Scottish icon in a sympathetic light, and Pavel Douglas is fantastically over the top as the nasty Red Comyn! Brian Blessed gives a crazy but fulfilling turn as King Edward, and Ollie Reed does good as the bishop! People who are complaining about this film are just negatively comparing it with 'Braveheart', and this is not really fair, the film delivers an account of Robert The Bruce's life, and does so on a very low budget! It is perhaps, too over ambitious, but fitting an epic struggle lasting 25 years into a 110 minute film is reason enough for applause! It would work well as a school film to give kids a history lesson they can expand on later, but its target audience is the couch potato (GUILTY AS CHARGED!), and we don't need $79 million spent on a film, just so long as it tells a good story! Even Wolf from Gladiators gives an OK performance, and if that isn't enough, Robin Hood makes a guest appearance at the end of the film! If its a rainy Wednesday afternoon and the wife is out,and 'Loose Women' is on TV, you will probably be a lot happier giving up an hour and a half on this film than watching the previously mentioned programme!!

The English are a little too evil, the Scots are a bit too

heroic. The dialogue is overly dramatic at times, and the

transitions between scenes could be smoother.

Still, "The Bruce" has the feel of authentic, if unpolished,

history ... even if it does play loosely with some important

facts.

Sandy Welch is no Gibson or Branagh, but he makes a stalwart

Bruce. And Brian Blessed chews the scenery in delightful

villainy as Edward I.

While lacking the budget needed to make the final battle truly

impressive, they still marshalled an impressive crowd for the

English and Scottish armies. It is, according to filmmakers, the

"largest filmed reconstruction of medieval battle ever staged in

the British Isles."

Allowing for a few failings and shortcomings, the film still

does a convincing portrayal.

I invested hard cash in this production and may therefore seem biased in my opinion; so if I say this is the worst film you'll ever see, the worst scripted, cast (except for Oliver Reed), edited and most of all DIRECTED, you'll probably get my message! I am a Scot as well as a first class honours graduate in Film Production and a History teacher, so maybe I know what I'm talking about. How I would love to meet the Producer/Director Bob Carruthers, of this appalling rubbish, the man who took my thousands of pounds, and managed to turn the greatest story in Scottish History into the most embarrassing production you could ever imagine, so that I could tell him to move over and let someone who knows how to make a real film take over - and even give me my money back!

Reed, Blessed, Welch and van Wijk all turn in quality performances in this under-rated account of Scotland's greatest warrior (are you watching William Wallace?) but one cast member stands head and shoulders above his colleagues. In the final set, Stuart Poole, clad in garb to make Robin Hood jealous, congratulates the Bruce on his vanquishing of the foe. The dignity, grace and emotion evident in Poole's performance is a joy to behold. It's a shame he isn't credited on imdb...

What was the most irritating thing about this film?

The appalling acting? The revelation that medieval knights apparently fought with an assortment of *very* wobbly rubber axes and other assorted joke shop armaments (honestly, a Pythonesque cow flip would not have been misplaced). The fact that one of the most important battles in 14th century Europe looked more like a disorganised pub fight, with no discernible cues to the viewer as to who was English or Scottish? The incomprehensibly boring narrative? The most ham-fisted, cheesiest, cliché ridden 'tottie-scone' dialogue, ever?

Perhaps all of the above.

To me, however, there was a general eclipse of all that. It was the following.

The quest for Scottish Independence was decades in the making. It saw some of the most deftifying, heroic, savage, heartbreaking and bloodthirsty history that's ever been. We're talking about a time that, when the Scottish defensive wall at Berwick developed a weak spot, children and woman were sent to fill the place to keep the invader out. Every man, woman and child was at war.

In 1996 Scotland deserved a 'proper' movie. Yes, Braveheart was a movie that *deserved* to be made, in it's identification and selling of Scottish history - I applauded it's success - but in doing so I also openly acknowledged the fact that it was a bad film. A very bad film.

Consequently, 'The Bruce' served only to mutilate and befoul not only history itself, but the chance of one day exploring that history in a better capacity than Braveheart ever did - through film - by simply telling the story (trust me, a Screenwriter's dream - as it is, left well alone) on the back of a good budget and high-profile pitch.

The Director of the Bruce should be trialled for Cultural crimes and then, publicly, carted naked through the old streets of Edinburgh, before slowly being drawn against 'The Maiden'.

Shooting adverts for spam products might have been a challenge for him. Instead, he created the single worst movie on the planet (in every conceivable sense) with material that would have gifted a talented directorial new-start with a plethora of creative devices and opportunity.

In short, I wanted to scoop my own eyes out and replace them with cartoon bomb-jacks. And, in short, he ruined it for real directors of the future.