Braveheart 1995

The Film:

Oh dear. We're starting to hit peak 90s nonsense now. I remember going to see this one at the cinema (along with most of the films mentioned below - I saw a lot of films in 1995). I think I might have seen it again once since then. I wasn't really impressed either time. I can't see that changing much this time round.

At the time of Braveheart, Mel Gibson wasn't quite the controversial figure that he is now. He was known for being really Catholic and having lots of kids, but the drunk-driving, anti-semitic, homophobic and (allegedly) wife-abusing side of him hadn't yet been revealed to the public. I don't know what difference all this will make to my viewing of this film - possibly none (it's "Passion of the Christ" that bothers me more on that count) but, suffice it to say, I wasn't ever that much of a fan of Mel Gibson anyway. If we watch it with a dram of really good Single Malt and follow it with a couple of episodes of Still Game, maybe it won't be too bad....

The Ceremony:

March 25th 1996 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. After Letterman's dodgy attempt the previous year they got Whoopi back - and also got Quincy Jones in to produce. It was generally considered to be a great success, although ratings were down. Whoopi's opening monologue was a good one:

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Gibson took home two awards for Braveheart, but he didn't even get a nomination for his acting (thank God!). There were some big names in those categories this year. Nicolas Cage beat two previous winners (Dreyfuss and Hopkins) and a future double winner (Penn) to take home Best Actor and the glorious and fabulous Susan Sarandon quite rightfully saw off Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson (who won the screenplay award instead) to win for her portrayal of Sr Helen Prejean.

Among the other awards was one for one of my favourite documentaries, Anne Frank Remembered (I was quite obsessed with it for a while) and the second of Wallace and Gromit's three Oscars.

There still wasn't an Animated Feature award at this point, so the only thing that Toy Story took home was a "special achievement" award.

Best Song:

It's another Disney - this time "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas (that Gibson fella gets everywhere!). This managed to beat the mighty "You Got A Friend In Me" from Toy Story!

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

There are a LOT of films I would rather have watched instead of Braveheart. It was a good year for a real variety of top quality films. The other four nominees were Apollo 13, Babe, Il Postino, Sense and Sensibility. To my shame I've still never seen Il Postino, but out of the other three I would probably give it to Apollo 13.

However, there are loads more films that were also (imho) much better than Braveheart, including: Dead Man Walking, Leaving Las Vegas, Toy Story (which didn't get nominated, but Babe did?!?), The Usual Suspects, Casino, Mr Holland's Opus, Bridges of Madison County, 12 Monkeys.... Of these I'd go for Dead Man Walking. Beautifully written and directed, wonderfully acted.

Our Verdict:

Away an bile ya heid ya bawbag! (that's me
shouting at Mel, not him at the English!)

Well, I can give you a one word review. And that word is "pish". I should probably say a bit more than that though.

It's been a while now since we watched the thing, but I happen to be writing this review on 25th January. I'm not sure if that's an appropriate coincidence, or an extreme affront to the sacred memory of Robert Burns, but here goes!

Braveheart is the story of 13th Century William Wallace, who leads a noisy and bloody uprising against the English. My knowledge of this era of history is very patchy, but the general consensus seems to be that Gibson's knowledge (or, at least, his regard for it) is just as patchy. As such, the story very quickly becomes rather formulaic, and this won't be the last time we are going to watch pretty much the same story in this challenge. (Next time it's a different century, different country, different antipodean actor but a very similar story!)

Oh look, a woman. There's a novelty!

  Young William Wallace watches his family die at the hands of the English invaders and escapes to Europe where he gets educated before returning to Scotland. He marries his childhood sweetheart (oh look - a female cast member....but not for long!) who is then raped by the English and eventually executed for trying to fight back.

Arses - some of the best acting in the whole thing!

Wallace has a fairly understandable reaction to all this - and leads his men to slaughter all the English in the vicinity. Then to slaughter a fair few more English. And to paint their faces blue, show the English what they keep under their kilts, and slaughter even more of them - including the King's nephew, who's head he sends as a warning to the King (sort of part John the Baptist, part Gwyneth Paltrow). In return the King sends his son's wife to try and reason with Wallace. (Yeay - another woman! That's your lot though....) Then there's another battle, Wallace gets caught, hung drawn and quartered, shouts "Freedom!" a lot and Robert the Bruce finishes the job for him.

Gie it up ye!!

There's a lot of shouting, a lot of blood, sweat and spit, a lot of hairy men in kilts and far too much of Mel Gibson's ego and his dodgy Scottish accent. There are some great actors in there and the battle scenes are pretty impressive. But, ultimately, I really don't care. Not because I don't care about Scotland or Scottish history, but because very little in this film makes me care about what's going on. I know I'm in a minority - IMDB is full of glowing reviews. But to me it's just another example of overblown 90s unlimited-budget (including Oscar marketing!) film-making, which looks impressive but does very little for me. Next time I watch a Scottish film it will almost certainly be Gregory's Girl (again) and it will be a much better experience than sitting through this!