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Braveheart
- favourite film

Once named by The Times the second most historically inaccurate movie ever, the subtlety of 1995 release Braveheart is summed up by the mythical alternative title, “Aren’t the English Bastards?” There is poetic license; and of course the film is meant to be drama not history; and there is always a need to simplify complex historical events – here Scottish struggles against the English, dynastic strife, and so on - to suit that drama; but still... At least Braveheart employed the late great Patrick McGoohan, along with other notably gifted actors like Brian Cox , Ian Bannen, and Brendan Gleeson. And to be fair to the film the action sequences, especially the Battle of Stirling , are excellent – Mel Gibson’s direction rather better than his Scottish accent.
Epics can be the very height of cinematic entertainment, the big screen used to its best effect. Gibson shoots the Scottish (and Irish for some scenes) landscape sympathetically. But it is hard – for this English viewer at any rate – not to react to the almost propagandistic feel of the film. Not so those who award the Oscars: Braveheart won Best Picture, Best Director, and three more to boot.

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