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Before I begin: A bias. I hate Mel Gibson. The one time I ever liked his work was his surprisingly good(because it was visceral) portrayal of Hamlet(in an otherwise badly truncated & maimed version). Beyond that, I think he's a self-obsessed, sexist, homophobic mindless macho goon who so OBVIOUSLY wants to be the next John Wayne. This makes me like him even less: y'see, I hated the FIRST John Wayne. This brainless ego trip deserved to sink like a stone, out of sight forever. Now it's Best Picture. Which only goes to show the Oscars are crap. But we knew that, didn't we?

I was amazed to look at other comments on this film at this site and find them all to be positive. I'd have thought this would have been a PRIME subject of attack. Filling in the gap, here's the NEGATIVE review of BRAVEHEART. I presume you've seen it by now, if you're reading this, so I'll only go into plot details as necessary.

I'll get this out of the way: Depite the frequency of the always-nauseating tin whistle-which is really more of an Irish thing, isn't it?-this is an entertaining film if you don't care at all about the subject whose story it claims to tell. Yes-the cinematography, acting, editing, fight scenes, decor, and other surface items people were well-paid to keep looking good so Gibson would appear he could actually direct-these are all excellent. The scripting, in a very shallow way, is witty-the dialogue, not the hackneyed plot grafted onto history. But I really don't give a damn. These are the last nice things about the movie you'll hear in this review. So what's so wrong with this picture?

First, and foremost: Being of descent from Scotland's Dunndeigh clan, I am heartily offended by the multiple historical inaccuracies shot throughout this thing(these people are paid enough to do research on more than costumes; there is no excuse for this all-too-common insulting carelessness in Hollywood films), and find it surprising that this thing is so popular as it is in Scotland. Merely a few(of many potential) examples:

It portrayed Robert Bruce, their national hero and liberator of Scotland(and, indirectly, destroyer of Edward II) as a coward, traitor, liar and quisling, which hasn't any basis in historical fact. (It's like claiming Lincoln intended to, well, enslave the slaves.) I know a time when Scots would kill you for suggestions like that.

The then-future queen of England(well, the secondary one), the wife of Edward II, Isabel, could not have had a child by William Wallace. In

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