My friend Diane sent me a link to this set of mini movie reviews, letting us know that sometimes historical inaccuracies are our friends:
Posted by Nicholas at September 14, 2007 09:01 AMThe Flick: Mel Gibson's earliest example of "loose" historical reenactment, Braveheart marks a promising start to a career later spent boiling complex political issues down to "Mel Gibson kills Englishmen with an axe" (The Patriot) and curiously drawn-out torture scenes involving his heroes (The Passion of the Christ).
The Inaccuracies: Far from a scrappy commoner who clawed his way up from the mud to defend his homeland, William Wallace was actually a knight from a noble family, and his father Malcolm wasn't killed by the English, but fought on the English side in exchange for political favor. Also, instead of kilts, the Wallace and his army wore saffron shirts.
Why It Would Have Sucked Otherwise: We have to imagine that if Mel Gibson were forced to play a role any more layered than that of the just and righteous warrior-king-redeemer, his face would melt off from the challenge, revealing the circuitry within. And as entertaining as that would be, it's not as entertaining as the actual movie, or the years of mileage we've gotten out of screaming "They may take our things — but they'll never take our FREEEEEEDOM!" when we have our nail clippers taken away from us at airport security.
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