My old dad used to treat this Mel Gibson Best Picture Oscar-winner with utter scorn and derision, especially with reference to the actual facts as known. He always started off with the respective differences in size between the real William Wallace's true dimensions and the much less imposing Mel Gibson while anyone who does the mildest of diligence into the historical facts will see just how much licence director Gibson and his screenwriter Randall Wallace took with the Scottish rebel-hero's story. I know and knew all this even as I rewatched the film again but despite the overwhelming number of plot contrivances served up, I have to admit as an independence-leaning Scot myself, the film never fails to stir my own blood.
We follow the young Wallace from his early childhood, almost literally blooded early in life to hate the occupying English army under the rule of their despotic King Edward Longshanks played with real brio by Patrick McGoohan. When he loses his father and older brother in another betrayal by Edward, it's clear that the now fully-grown, long-haired Wallace is only awaiting one final provocation before he accepts the freedom-fighter mantle and takes up the cudgels on behalf of his downtrodden people.
For those who don't know very much about Scottish history, it is filled with glorious failures and almost as often double-dealing, back-stabbing intrigue so that it's no surprise when his heroics are brought to an end by a combination of underhand scheming on the part of Edward and the connivance of the corruptible Scottish nobility, in particular the treachery of the future "try, try again" hero - King Robert the Bruce. But Wallace has the last word in more ways than one with his martyr's death and impregnation of the future English queen.
Certainly one of Hollywood's more outrageous retellings of a story from history, the movie bludgeons its way into the viewer's consciousness down to the twin combination of Gibson's muscular, gritty direction and his athleticism and conviction in the lead role. Sure, the accents across the cast are occasionally as convincing as a King's promise, but with effective use of crowd scenes and the gory, no holds-barred depictions of battleground warfare, laced with earthy humour and even a good old Highland romance, Gibson delivers a powerfully uplifting if historically inaccurate feature which has thrilled the Scottish national psyche and no doubt the freedom-seeking aspirations of many another country ever since.
