Movie:
Braveheart
Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Plot Overview:
In the 13th century, after
several years of political unrest, Scotland is invaded and conquered by King
Edward I of England (called "Longshanks" for his height) (Patrick
McGoohan).
Young William Wallace witnesses
the treachery of Longshanks, survives the death of his father and brother, and
is taken abroad by his uncle where he is educated. Years later, Longshanks
grants his noblemen land and privileges in Scotland, including Primae Noctis,
the right of the lord to take a newly married Scottish woman into his bed on
her wedding night. When he returns home, Wallace (Gibson) falls in love with
his childhood sweetheart, Murron MacClannough (McCormack), and they marry in
secret so that she does not have to spend a night in the bed of the English
lord.
When an English soldier tries to
rape Murron, Wallace fights off several soldiers and the two attempt to flee.
But Murron is captured and publicly executed by the sheriff, who proclaims
"an assault on the King's soldiers is the same as an assault on the King himself."
In retribution, Wallace and several villagers slaughter the English garrison
and execute the sheriff. In addition, he goes to York, allows one of the
villagers to avenge his wife's sexual shaming from an English lord, and sends
the occupying English garrison back to England. This enrages Longshanks, who
confronts his son Edward about this: he then orders his son to stop Wallace by
any means necessary. He also knows his son has a bisexual relationship going
with his French wife Isabella and another man: momentarily ignoring this,
Longshanks tells Edward "One day you will be a king: at least try to act
like one."
Wallace rebels against the
English, and as his legend spreads, hundreds of Scots from the surrounding
clans join him. Wallace leads his army to victory at the Battle of Stirling and
then sacks the city of York. All the while, Wallace seeks the assistance of
Robert the Bruce (Macfadyen), the son of nobleman Robert the Elder and a
contender for the Scottish crown. Despite his growing admiration for Wallace
and his cause, Robert is dominated by his father, who wishes to secure the
throne for his son by submitting to the English.
Longshanks, worried by the threat
of the rebellion, sends the wife of his son Edward, the French princess
Isabella, to try to negotiate with Wallace in hopes that Wallace kills her in
order to draw the French king to declare war on Wallace in revenge. Wallace
refuses the bribe sent with Isabella by Longshanks, but after meeting him in
person, Isabella becomes enamored with him. Meanwhile, Longshanks prepares an
army to invade Scotland.
Robert the Bruce, intending to
join Wallace and commit troops to the war, sets up a meeting with him in
Edinburgh where Robert's father has conspired with other nobles to capture and
hand over Wallace to the English. Learning of his treachery, Robert the Bruce
disowns his father. Following a tryst with Wallace, Isabella exacts revenge on
the now terminally ill Longshanks by telling him she is pregnant with Wallace's
child, intent on ending Longshank's line and ruling in his son's place.
In London, Wallace is brought
before an English magistrate, tried for high treason, and condemned to public
torture and beheading. Even whilst being hanged, drawn and quartered, Wallace
refuses to beg for mercy and submit to the king. As cries for mercy come from
the watching crowd, the magistrate offers him one final chance. Wallace instead
shouts the word "Freedom!" Just before the axe falls, Wallace sees a
vision of Murron in the crowd smiling at him.
Years after Wallace's death,
Robert the Bruce, now Scotland's king, leads a Scottish army before a
ceremonial line of English troops on the fields of Bannockburn where he is to
formally accept English rule. As he begins to ride toward the English, he stops
and turns back to his troops. Invoking Wallace's memory, he implores them to
fight with him as they did with Wallace. He then leads his army into battle
against the stunned English, winning the Scots their freedom.
Criticism
Braveheart tugs
on your heart and dazzles your eyes with brilliantly evocative images through
its quaint beginnings, then grows deliciously dirty as the epic tragedy gains
momentum with ferocious passion and chivalric resolve. William's vigor
transcends into an effervescent blend of vengeance and strife for Scotland's
freedom from this oppression. You see him physically become Scotland, living and
breathing purely for their sovereignty and nothing else, and you heavily
empathize with him. His following soldiers, meticulously portrayed by a host of
strong character actors led by Brendan Gleeson as Wallace's childhood friend
and David O'Hara as the crazy Irish fighter, unabashedly support him, both out
of respect and out of his writhing sympathy for Murron. Gibson's ruggedly
charismatic performance as Wallace keeps him appearing famished and desperate -
but never with wavering force.It's an
undeniably potent story, one with love and honor's boiling strength raging at
its core. Aside the main love story, we get a taste of the inner conflicts
within the English camp as well. The formerly French Princess of Wales,
portrayed with incredible charisma by Sophie Marceau, struggles to build a
relationship with her potentially homosexual husband, the Prince of England.
She yearns for her own freedom from the reigns of different kinds of English
oppression and, in connections with William Wallace, provides one of the few
glimmers of purity and beauty through her aid towards the Scots.Full of layers
and complications, Braveheart is surprisingly straightforward until politics
litter the storyline in the final act of the film. Through the blossoming love
and the exploding warfare, we're kept on the edge of our seat until the
political agendas of other Scotsman lower our nerves. These complications,
involving Robert the Bruce (Angus McFayden) and his family's lineage, are
downshifted and intentionally slower in pace. Braveheart's fuming ferocity
becomes throttled down amidst this, but in good ways that still maintain our
interest. It gives us a breather leading up to the film's gut wrenching and
evocative finale that, to upmost honesty, never ceases to swell a tear or two
under these eyes.Braveheart rises
up from being nothing more than a finely assembled picture through its strongly
grounded disposition, fluttering humor, and amiable characters. Anybody can
make a beautiful epic that achieves admirable potency; very few, however, can
craft a three-hour story of love, malice, and freedom that breezes by with the
drop of a hat and makes us want to come back time and time again for repeat
emotional torment. It'll likely never lose that vigor in its gut wrenching
core.
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