Braveheart at 31: A Stirring Epic With a Hole Where Its History Should Be

Braveheart won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Mel Gibson. It runs 178 minutes. It is an American epic historical war drama, released on May 24, 1995, and it has carried a tagline for thirty-one years that still does the heavy lifting: “Every man dies, not every man really lives.”

The film earns a 6.8 of 10. That is not a shrug. It is a measurement of what the movie actually is — a large, loud, often stirring piece of filmmaking with a hole where its history should be.

Trailer, via Paramount Movies.

William Wallace and the First War of Scottish Independence

Gibson directs, produces and stars as William Wallace, the Scottish warrior at the center of the First War of Scottish Independence. Randall Wallace wrote the screenplay, adapting Blind Harry’s 15th century epic poem The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace. The cast around Gibson is deep: Sophie Marceau as Princess Isabelle, Patrick McGoohan as King Edward, Catherine McCormack as Murron MacClannough, Angus Macfadyen as Robert the Bruce, Brendan Gleeson as Hamish Campbell.

The plot is built on revenge and then outgrows it. In 1280, Edward I — “Longshanks” — conquers Scotland after the Scots’ king dies without an heir. Young William watches the aftermath of Longshanks’ execution of Scottish nobles, then loses his father and brother when they resist. He is raised by his uncle, Argyle.

Years later, Longshanks hands his noblemen land and privileges in Scotland, including jus primae noctis, while his son marries the French princess Isabelle. Wallace comes home and secretly marries his childhood friend Murron. He rescues her from a soldier. She is captured and executed anyway. Wallace and the locals overthrow the garrison, and the rebellion spreads.

Stirling, York and Falkirk

The battle scenes are the reason the film still gets named in this conversation. Wallace defeats an army sent by the prince at Stirling, then invades England by sacking York. He meets Robert the Bruce, a contender for the Scottish crown. Longshanks sends Isabelle to negotiate as a distraction from his troop movements; she becomes enamored with Wallace and warns him of the plan.

At Falkirk, nobles Mornay and Lochlan withdraw after Longshanks bribes them, and Wallace’s army is overwhelmed. He learns Robert the Bruce had joined Longshanks. Robert helps him escape and vows not to be on the wrong side again. Wallace kills Mornay and Lochlan for the betrayal and foils an assassination plot with Isabelle’s help.

That is a lot of movie, and 178 minutes is not padding — it is the shape the story needs. What holds up best:

• The battle scenes, which the film was praised for on release.
• The production design, also singled out.
• The musical score.
• The performances, Gibson’s included.

What does not hold up is the history. The film drew criticism for its historical inaccuracies when it came out, and that criticism has not aged out. A movie can take liberties. The question is whether the liberties buy anything. Here they mostly buy a cleaner villain and a simpler cause.

Randall Wallace and Blind Harry

Worth noting where the screenplay came from. Randall Wallace adapted a 15th century poem, which is itself not a record — it is a poem, written generations after the events, with its own agenda. The film inherits that distance and then adds another layer of its own.

Development did not start smoothly. The project began at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when producer Alan Ladd Jr. picked it up from Wallace. When MGM went through new management, Ladd left the studio and took the project with him. Gibson initially declined, then decided to direct and star. Icon Productions and The Ladd Company produced it; Paramount Pictures distributed in the United States and Canada, 20th Century Fox elsewhere.

That is a film that nearly did not get made, twice over, and you can feel the determination in it. Gibson directs like a man who knows he may not get another shot at this scale.

Patrick McGoohan as King Edward

McGoohan is the best thing in the movie. Longshanks is a written villain — the jus primae noctis grant tells you everything about how the film wants you to feel — but McGoohan plays him as a sick, patient man rather than a cartoon. His health declines across the back half, and the film uses that decline as a clock. It works.

Marceau gets less to do than the role deserves. Isabelle is a negotiator who becomes a warning system and then a night with Wallace while Longshanks fades. The film treats her as a turn in the plot rather than a person in it.

Five Oscars and a 2019 Sequel

At the 68th Academy Awards, Braveheart was nominated for ten awards and won five, including Best Picture and Best Director for Gibson. That is the industry’s verdict, and it is a real one. A legacy sequel, Robert the Bruce, was released in 2019.

Here is what matters and what does not. The Oscars matter less than the fact that the battle sequences still work — that is the part of this film that has actually survived. The historical inaccuracies matter more than the awards, because they are the reason the movie cannot be recommended as anything but a story. And the tagline matters least of all, though it is the line everyone remembers.

What Braveheart Gets Right

The film’s real achievement is scale without weightlessness. Wallace’s arc — from a man who wants a quiet marriage to a man leading a country — is legible at every step, and Gibson plays the turn without begging for sympathy. The rebellion spreading from one garrison to a nation is the movie’s best idea, and it is staged with enough bodies to sell it.

1. Watch it for the battles and McGoohan.
2. Watch it knowing the history is a costume, not a record.
3. Do not watch it expecting Marceau’s Isabelle to get a real part.
4. Do not watch the 178 minutes in one sitting if you can avoid it.

The order matters, because the first item is the reason to bother and the second is the reason to be careful.

The Verdict on Braveheart

Braveheart is a good movie with a bad conscience about facts. It was praised for its battle scenes, production design, score and acting, and criticized for its historical inaccuracies, and both of those things are still true thirty-one years on. The five Oscars — Best Picture, Best Director among them — reflect what the film does well. The criticism reflects what it does not.

1995 film · Best Picture · Braveheart · historical drama · Mel Gibson · movie review