Review of Braveheart (1995) by Filipeneto — 12 Feb 2018

A shame: history didn't pass here.

This film tells the story of William Wallace (Mel Gibson), a champion of Scottish independence that urged the Scots to fight against the attempts of invasion and domination of the English. Directed by Mel Gibson (who also plays the lead role), has Randall Wallace's script.

This film is especially dedicated to those who don't know absolutely nothing of Scotland's history and don't wish to understand anything about it anytime soon. This is because the whole film is a complete nonsense, one slapstick that should never have been filmed, an insult to Scotland and its past. Why am I so hard? Because this film not only ignored the real life of William Wallace, lying about that and inventing the most of things, but also portrays the Scots (and even the English) in a historically inaccurate manner.

There is absolutely nothing good in this movie. The costumes don't match (even the kilts didn't exist yet at Wallace's time), battles didn't happened that way, Gibson's performance was poor and theatrical, photography is boring and ordinary and the psychological depth of all characters is comparable to a dry river in Summer. Oscars for this film? Yes, he got some (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Effects and Best Makeup)... but I don't even want to know how it's happened! Even the Razzie Awards are something too good for this movie. Mel Gibson is usually a good actor. He can be a good "Patriot", he may even know "What Women Want", have a "Lethal Weapon" or even several. I don't care. But making a "Braveheart" so bad that even the Monty Python would easily do better is such a shame that leaves me in the "Edge of Darkness"... This movie takes one star from me because i'm feeling generous today. Only for that.