Braveheart

Most on this site pick the Godfather, or the Shawshank Redemption, but this is it, this is the best film ever made. People will complain, will argue that I am wrong, but I will say it again...Braveheart is as close to perfection as a movie can be. The acting is superb, the man who played Lonshanks, the actor who portrayed Robert the Bruce, both should have been nominated for Oscars due to their powerful rendering of evil and a man who is saved from losing his humanity (from becoming evil) by meeting William Wallace. And let us not forget the direction, the cinematography. Braveheart is glorious, beautiful to look at. The slow motion pictures of horses preparing to charge armed combatants, the entire landscape of Scotland that Mel Gibson captures with the camera. Braveheart is artwork, it is as good as any picture. That the film is number 93 on the list of the top 250 movies ever is a shame. Yes there is violence in this film but that violence does serve a point...that freedom isn't free and sometimes it takes death, gruesome and horrible, to let ones people taste what it is like to be free. Braveheart is a great movie and it deserves to at least be in the top ten of IMDb's list of greatest films.

What to say about Braveheart?

This movie holds up against the challenge of aging, its exciting, adventurous, funny and passionate. The movie is beautifully shot and sounds incredible.

Is it violent? Sure but what war isn't. I think Mel makes violence as much a part of the story in all his (relevant) films. The characters struggle through great violence and the impacts that is has on them, by not shying away from it we are allowed to get a small appreciation of it and them.

The movie isn't OTT but delivers great action that serves the story and entertains the viewer.

Its considered a classic film and so it is.

My old dad used to treat this Mel Gibson Best Picture Oscar-winner with utter scorn and derision, especially with reference to the actual facts as known. He always started off with the respective differences in size between the real William Wallace's true dimensions and the much less imposing Mel Gibson while anyone who does the mildest of diligence into the historical facts will see just how much licence director Gibson and his screenwriter Randall Wallace took with the Scottish rebel-hero's story. I know and knew all this even as I rewatched the film again but despite the overwhelming number of plot contrivances served up, I have to admit as an independence-leaning Scot myself, the film never fails to stir my own blood.

We follow the young Wallace from his early childhood, almost literally blooded early in life to hate the occupying English army under the rule of their despotic King Edward Longshanks played with real brio by Patrick McGoohan. When he loses his father and older brother in another betrayal by Edward, it's clear that the now fully-grown, long-haired Wallace is only awaiting one final provocation before he accepts the freedom-fighter mantle and takes up the cudgels on behalf of his downtrodden people.

For those who don't know very much about Scottish history, it is filled with glorious failures and almost as often double-dealing, back-stabbing intrigue so that it's no surprise when his heroics are brought to an end by a combination of underhand scheming on the part of Edward and the connivance of the corruptible Scottish nobility, in particular the treachery of the future "try, try again" hero - King Robert the Bruce. But Wallace has the last word in more ways than one with his martyr's death and impregnation of the future English queen.

Certainly one of Hollywood's more outrageous retellings of a story from history, the movie bludgeons its way into the viewer's consciousness down to the twin combination of Gibson's muscular, gritty direction and his athleticism and conviction in the lead role. Sure, the accents across the cast are occasionally as convincing as a King's promise, but with effective use of crowd scenes and the gory, no holds-barred depictions of battleground warfare, laced with earthy humour and even a good old Highland romance, Gibson delivers a powerfully uplifting if historically inaccurate feature which has thrilled the Scottish national psyche and no doubt the freedom-seeking aspirations of many another country ever since.

On my list of the greatest movies of all time, BraveHeart ranks as number 3. It is by far one of the most epic stories ever told. Mel Gibson deserved all the credit he recieved and more. His portrayal of William Wallace, one of Scotlands most mightiest warriors, was spot on. The only part that lacked was the romantic affair of Princess Isabella and Wallace. It historically never happened. This movie also has other historical errors but WHO CARES!

The Battle of Stirling has to be the second most graphic piece of footage ever shot next to Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan. I love the part where the English Commander gives the order to charge and Wallace sees this and raises his broadsword into the air and starts yelling. He charges the field with the Scots and I'll let you see the movie to see what happens next.

Wallace's emotional speech at the battle of Stirling still is inspirational and I think that the REAL William Wallace would be proud of the way Mel Gibson portrayed him.

My hat goes off to Mel Gibson. I hope he makes a few more movies like this one.

Out of ten............10/10!

It doesn't get any better than this. Mel Gibson didn't just star in this movie but directed and produced. No one will ever forget...

Run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!