Spoilers..?
I doubt it… but…

Confession time, i have never seen Braveheart in full. Ive seen the end & the iconic bits, but 3h is a slog for a film, but i have some annual leave & ive just finished dinner so why not lets put it on. Its on prime too. I know exactly where this is going & what im about to see, so lets do this peoples.

So at my primary school when you got to year 7 (11 or 12 year olds) you got to watch likesome proper history films, not dumbed down or toned down, as how they actually were. The year before i got there my mum worked in the year above, & the teacher thought all the kids could watch Braveheart, & we were all told about this & were like oooh next year looks good. However there were so many parent complaints (this was in an age when you didnt need a consent film to watch a 12A at school teachers put on what they wanted {demon headmaster still needs to come with a warning}) that when we got to year 7 we were all like really we are doing this, nah we didnt get that. We got Pearl Harbour instead, urgh, maybe thats why i think Ben Affleck is a bad actor. So yea we didnt get Braveheart.

I can see why back in 2001 so many parents moaned & said nah our kids shouldnt have seen that. As an adult who doesnt mind grimness there were bits i was watching going oh god no not that, dont do that. Yea the year above were probably scared for life, which explains alot if im honest.

I know Mel Gibson isnt the most popular person in the world for many different reason, however you ask him to direct you an epic battle film with no hold bars going on & he fucking delivers. It really was just full on & there was bodies everywhere & it was all over the place, but it wouldnt have been choreographed to a t in real life would it. So many battles when we watch films these days are choreographed so much but this was just fight after fight & it was chaos as it would have been. He got them so right.

As a lead as well he was good. His heartbreak at all the deaths in his life that happened to make him the man he was, really did make you feel for him & be like come on mate you can do this & take them on. I mean hes never been my cuppa tea but i can see what made women go very like ooooh hello at him in this film, i can see that charm working so much. Hes a good lead, but his directing is better.

It was weird seeing Brendan Gleeson playing the son of someone important where you know hes going to eventually take on the mantel of his family, when now he plays that father figure who has to die or inspire those people. That was weird, thats how old the film is. So much so it took a couple of shoots for me to be like that is Gleeson right?

As an English Person id like to apologise for everything bad weve dont in the past. We really werent very nice people at all. I mean i know ive said there have been a few moments recently when ive been ashamed to be british, but watching this, i was like yea were the bad guys here. Give Scotland their independence & dont be twats about it then or now. the murdering & raping wasnt nice either, we really were not nice pieces of work.

Once again a historical drama where the kings & queens of countries go to the front line & risk it all. So as much as it was only 300miles up the road if you get me, who was running the place.

Some of the tactics in the battles there were used were so clever & were so good &you can see why this went on the several years. It really was very smart. No one trusted each other tho, not even on the same side. If you all want independence & someones got an epic plan, you go with that rather then submit to the English. Leadership not a strong point unless you were wallace & his men.

There were some horrific deaths in this (we will get to the main one later), but there was tar, beheadings, goring, window falls (they were gay right? or did i just misread that room there?) i know its a medieval war film but still. Some were pretty grim.

However none of the horrors in this form are as bad as Williams torture & execution, which is in front of all the english (& his two Scottish allies he still has who remained loyal to the end, good on them). I mean this is the bit id seen the most from this film before, however its still very harrowing & not nice to watch. Its really painful & just watch it because you cant turn your head away at the horror. I also like that the crowd are so up for this & the torture & the execution & then when it gets to the end of it they are all like, yea this is a bit much mate, nah no way peoples, have mercy. Its so well done & other than the battles is the other stand out part of the film.

Some nice cinematography, but if this was made today it would be 3h30 long due to the extra shoots & lighting & staging of it, it really would. Ive seen a few films recently where as much as there is lush cinematography, how many times do we need that shoot of someone walking across the ice, or the fjords or even looking at the same cactus in different lights (still not over that from Nomadland think we saw that cactus 10 times, well it felt like it). IT would have been even longer, thank god for Mel getting on with it & telling a story & not having 5million scenery shoots.

Im very glad ive seen this in full now. One more to tick of the i really should have watched this by now list. It was good & i did enjoy it, but i think i need to speak to a proper historian to see how realistic this actually was to the time.

They may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!