Braveheart
Braveheart
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.
匚卂尺ㄥ reviewedJanuary 26, 2025
🗡️Time for some people to lighten up. The number of complaints about lack of historical accuracy in this post are a bit overwhelming when one considers that it is a STORY. It's like a tv film "based on a true story" where the operative phrase is "BASED ON". Many contributors have criticised the timing of events in the film or some particularly bad error (like the senior Robert Bruce betraying Wallace), but it's all done in the name of telling an exciting story and it must be admitted that "Braveheart" IS an exciting story.
When "Braveheart" was first released in cinemas, I went to see it and there was a guy PICKETING the cinema, handing out leaflets decrying the inaccuracies (especially the part played by Robert Bruce).
The scenery is superb (even if it IS Ireland - cheaper than Scotland, apparently), the story has ingredients of history and romance (even if they're sometimes misplaced) and the battle scenes are pretty realistic (they couldn't be anything other than gory, considering the available weapons). Credit must also go to the actors, with a special mention for Patrick McGoohan who steals the show as the particularly nasty English king, Edward I.
So what if an amount of poetic licence has been used? It's a story - get over it. For an accurate physical portrayal of William Wallace, Mel Gibson would be unsuited to the role. I suspect that most "Braveheart" viewers haven't been to the Wallace monument near Stirling, but it's highly recommended. A climb up the 246 steps of the spiral staircase of the tower affords a view over the landscape where Wallace is said to have watched the English troops assembling before the battle of Stirling Bridge. Incidentally, Stirling Bridge crossed the river Forth and was only wide enough for two horsemen to ride side-by-side - thus was the battle won - by a gradual slaughter of the English forces as they crossed the river. In the film there is no bridge, and the "Forth" is a small, dry ditch that is easily crossed by a force of cavalry dozens wide.
The claymore said to have belonged to Wallace can be seen these days in an exhibition room at the base of the tower. This sword measures 1.63m (5' 4") long and weighs almost 3 kg. A two-handed sword like this would have been used by a man of about 6' 7" tall when the average man in 12th Century Scotland stood around 5 feet tall (source: BBC). Therefore, another example of poetic licence.
If you accept that this was a film BASED ON a true story and not a historical documentary, then it has all of the ingredients of a good action drama. It's all about suspending disbelief for a few hours and enjoying a yarn. I suspect that it attracted few students of Scottish history - except those who were desperate to rubbish it. As entertainment, it gets top marks⚔️