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Member since:30.05.2001
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The Americans hate us. You want proof? Okay; Braveheart, The Patriot, Saving Privete Ryan, Michael Collins and Cliffhanger to name but a few. All of them either focus on the Villainy of the English or they distort history or just change it altogether (U571). Cliffhanger features an American playing an English baddie because we’re so evil. The grand prize for Xenophobia though, goes to Die Hard 1 and 3, which couldn’t decide whether they hated the British or the Germans more, so as a solution they had a villain who was English playing a German. Brilliant.
Braveheart comes in between outright anti British sentiment and half true history. Mel Gibson obviously knew from the start that this film wasn’t really going to have a cult following in Britain, but that it would be huge in Scotland. Therefore Braveheart is duly packed with as much Brit-Hating as is possible and chest beating Scottish patriotism which is sickening in its obviousness and the glee derived from attacking the British.
Braveheart as we all now know is the story of Scottish rebel William Wallace who leads a campaign against the British invaders, falls in love with Princess Isabel and dies as a martyr. What they didn’t tell you in the cinema (apart from the truth), is that Wallace was actually a rich landowner, motivated to rebel after he feared of losing his farm. He never met the Princess, and in fact the film delights in playing merry hell
with history as the old adage ‘Don’t let the truth stand in the way of a good story’ rears its ugly head.
The Cast: Mel Gibson- William Wallace Sophie Marceau- Princess Isabelle Sean Mc Ginley- Mac Clannough Patrick McGoohan- Longshanks-Edward I Peter Hanly- Prince Edward
For those of you that have never had the pleasure, here is an abridged script;
Braveheart
The scene opens on an impoverished village where people are wearing what appears to be dung. William and his father exchange words as they converse in an intelligible banter still used in Scotland today, they don’t actually speak Scottish but have very thick accents.
Wallace: I want to fight with you Dad.
Dad: No.
Wallace: Fine then, I’m going to sulk until I hear you’re dead then I’m going to stand silently and emotionlessly whist tears trickle down my face in a picture of stereotypical Hollywood sadness. I’m also going to stare steely eyed into the distance, you’re meant to be thinking about how determined I am and how in years to come I’ll lead an army against the British.
(A little girl approaches with a thistle)
Girl: Here, take my symbolic thistle, you may need it when we suddenly flash forward thirty years.
(Flash forward to Mel Gibson who does nothing but stare steely eyed at the distance.)
Mel: I will set my country free, now all I need is an excuse for some bloodshed, Hmm. I know I’ll fall in love and then when my lady friend is killed I can go berserk with a five-foot sword.
Cut to a big battle. Braveheart cleaves hundreds of Brit soldiers in two.
Audience: Hey, he wouldn’t be able to swing a sword like that in real life, it would weigh a ton. And why the hell is your face painted blue, they stopped doing that years before this film is set.
Mel: Now I will try for the affections of the Princess.
Prince: Take her, I’m gay.
King Edward: You are? Right, then I’m going to throw your campy advisor out the window.
Audience: Hooray, best part in the movie. Oh damn Mels going to try and be sentimental, but it won’t work as we’ve seen how evil you are.
Cut to Mel looking steely eyed into the distance, he never stops doing this. Ever.
Mel: Now for this crucial battle I will put all my trust in Robert the Bruce who I don’t really think will actually help me.
Robert: I really don’t want to betray him.
Audience: Go on, betray him, we want to go home.
Robert: Ok.
(He betrays Mel)
Mel: I can’t believe you betrayed me, im going to stare steely eyed now into the distance.
Robert: Will you trust your life to me one last time?
Mel: Are you going to betray me again?
Robert: Yes.
Cut to Mel on a large block.
Mel: FREEDOMMMMM!!!
Executioner: No! Not yet we haven’t cut you open yet.
Mel: Sorry, I’m just trying to be emotional, I know, I’ll stare steely eyed into the distance.
Audience: Cut him open! If he starts staring again, we’ll eviscerate him ourselves.
(Executioner cuts Mel open)
Mel: FREEDOMMMMM!!!
Exec: Not yet!
Mel: Ooh look, my girlfriend. Hmmm shall I repent or not?
Audience: Don’t repent, we want to see you suffer.
Exec: Now Mel.
Mel: FREEDOMMMMM!!!
Audience: Shutup! How dare you try and wring emotion out of make believe history and portray us as the villains, if we made a movie about the truth in Vietnam, you’d probably bomb us. Now get your hateful rubbish out of the cinemas and stop appealing to the nationalistic mood of Scotland, they’re violent enough as it is.
The End.
So what if I am harbouring some resentment, I’m British Dammit, and it sickens me to see such one sided, biased, inaccurate cack. What’s even worse is that it won Oscars for number of English slaughtered in a film. Mel Gibson gives a good performance and the battle scenes are terrific, but I’m not rating the film on that. If it were fiction I’d give it five stars, but its not, its meant to be true, and the fact that Hollywood willingly puts out such an overtly racist film that masquerades as truth is despicable. Mel Gibson wants the Scottish to be the victorious, noble winners, and the British to be the nasty murderous villains. As an example for this, Scottish cinema goers cheer as the British get slaughtered, and during a screening of the film Michael Collins the audience yelled ‘Death to the British!’. That same film also re-invented history to make the English even crueller.
As a film, Braveheart has its moments, as History however it deserves to be fined. It isn’t historically accurate and the film goes out of its way to show English brutality and Scottish heroism that is as unwelcome as it is fictitious. Anyone tempted to defend this film, please bear in mind, I’m not attacking the beautifully choreographed fight scenes I’m reviewing it as a whole. It has fantastic parts, but overall as a product it’s a nasty piece of Anti English feeling that is inaccurate and offensive as people who don’t know any better take it for truth.
There aren’t many films about the Christmas bombings of Hanoii and Haiphong are there? And when was the last time you saw My Lai: The Massacre? The writer Randell Wallace went on to write The Patriot, another English hating film that sees us burning women and children in a locked church. Charming. Thank you Hollywood, we get the message.
P.S. the title comes from Brave New World if you're interested.
willgould.
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I'm not going to rate this review because I just don't know how t orate it. It's very well written I'll give you that. But I do not agree with 99% of your review.
Most of what you see in Braveheart was true. So what if he never met the princess? The actor playing Robert the Bruce even says at the beginning of the film "Historians from England will call me a liar, but history was written by those who have hanged heroes".
And the English WERE the villians. They attacked Scotland and practically made Scottish people slaves.
How dare you attack a film about our greatest hero.
No, it's not 100% correct, but that's to make the film more film-like. But the general story is 110% true.
steerpyke 22.09.2004 20:26
agree with the overall sentiment, but have to agree with those below about the interchanging use of English and British, but I suppose that it dosent matter too much as Edward the First was still more French than anything else. Both the Wallace and Bruce familly were of French descent and only go back to the Norman conquest, so they are not really very Scottish. Thinking about it what you end up with is the french fighting the French and thats never a bad thing...opps did I say that out loud.
Versatile 05.05.2002 19:50
Enjoyed the review ~ A fine piece ~ Thanks Versatile :O)
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![Braveheart [1995] [DVD]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78493099.jpg "Braveheart [1995] [DVD]")
Apr 27th, 2002
(Jun 12th, 2002)
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