Episode 57 - Braveheart (aka Kilt Freedom Force) - Middle Age Movie Reviews Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Electronic Media Collective podcast Network. Yeah,
it's a mouthful. For more great shows like the one
you're about to enjoy, visit Electronic Mediacollective dot com and
now our feature presentation.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hello, Welcome to the Middle Aged Movie News podcast. Three
guys saying there's a difference between us.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
You think the listeners of the podcast exist to provide
you with position. I think your position exists to provide
those people's entertainment, and we will go to make sure
that they have it.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
My name is Tim and my podcasting partners.

Speaker 4 (00:41):
Are Matt Joey.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oh right, Joey. Why don't you tell us what we're
watching tonight?

Speaker 5 (00:47):
Tonight we are watching the nineteen ninety five movie Braveheart,
number nine hundred and twenty four from the book of
one thousand and one Movies You Should Watch Before You Die,
written by Randall Wallace, directed by Mel Gibson, and starring
Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, and Patrick mcgoughhan.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
So, Tim, where and when did you first see Brave Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Front and center in the theater, sir? This was something
I was not going to miss. The theatrical would release
off my God, was it fantastic? Just fantastic. Nothing to
be seen in this movie on the big screen, other
than maybe if I could have seen it on an Imax.
That's the only thing that would have made it even better.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
Okay, well, how about you, Joey, when was the first
time you saw mel Gibson doing a Scottish accent entertainment tonight?

Speaker 5 (01:39):
But I want to say that I think I saw
it at the theater. People in my house hold like
played it on VHS so often that I don't remember
if I saw it in the theater because I've seen
it so many times on home video. It became one
of those things that's on TV like every weekend for
a while, and it became something that a lot of

(01:59):
people are kind of obsessed with. So I would have
to dig through like two hundred old faded movie stubs
to tell you if I saw it in the theater.
I think I did, but I don't remember.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
Nice Well, you know, I'm with him, and I know
for a fact that I went to see it in
the theater, and I remember it was the first movie
that I actually got to drive to on my own.
This is like prime high school movie for me. I
mean at the time, I was like a huge Mel
Gibson fan. I loved his characters since first watching him

(02:30):
in Lethal Weapon, So anytime something with him hit the theaters,
I was there. I mean I even went to go
see Forever Young. That's how much I liked Mel Gibson.
So anyway, this film, like I said, it hit all
the right buttons. I mean, it was action adventure, classic warfare, humor,
and of course a little bit of romance.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
It really blew your kilt up. Huh. Thank you for
not wearing your kilt. Thank you for having pants on.
I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I can't tell you how many people I seen wearing
kilts after this movie came out. Oh yeah, yeah, as
we were in the work, you have a cassul Friday,
some guy would show up in a kilt at work.
I'm like, really, I mean, I think you're taking it
just a little too far man.

Speaker 5 (03:07):
So I never got to experience that. It was a story.
It was one of those rumors of long ago.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, there was. There was a long history of geekdom
going on at that job. Considering what we did now, this.

Speaker 5 (03:17):
Movie's kind of like rumors long ago too, because we
don't know what's fact and what's fiction.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
I can tell you, as someone who's been to Scotland
and has seen the William Wallace monument, that William Wallace
did exist and he did inspire the independence of Scotland.
But there was definitely some liberties as far as how
many people fought with him at the Battle of Folker,
as well as his taking of York.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
I would say as far as the history, Yeah, there's
the only other thing that really ties the sender is
was written by Randall Wallace. That's a descendant of, you know,
of the main character.

Speaker 5 (03:52):
Is it an air quotes descendant like, yeah, I paid
the fifty dollars and I'm a Wallace now I changed
me name.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
He's a real legit Wallace and he was inspired to
research his an his ancestor after he too seen the
same statue you did, Matthew, and he came to the
realization real quickly that there's not a lot of information
about him out there, very hard to research him. So
they took a lot of liberties when they wrote this script.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
All right, well, now that we've you know, told a
little bit about history of the film, Tim as our
master of Puppets, what are you going to lay down
for us on a synopsis tonight.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, man, I didn't even have to think very hard
in this one. Considering your ancestry, this is a role
you've been waiting for your entire life. So tonight, Matthew,
I'd like you to embrace your heritage, and I would
like you to read the synopsis as Stephen the mad Irishman.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
All right, I'll see what I can do here. It
goes nothing, all right, father? Can you help me? In
the year of our Lord two one hundred and eighty
eight D, the King of Scotland dies without a son.
King Edward the First of England, or long Shanks as
we call him, invade Scotland, just as he did on
my personal island. That's right, it's my island, Allen. He

(05:10):
kills all the Scottish noblemen and declares English rule upon
its people. All right, father, I'm getting to it. William Wallace,
a man to whom I'm prettier and a descendant of
Scottish nobleman, survives and is taken abroad by his uncle
played by Brian Cox. He returns years later and marries
his childhood sweetheart Maron, and tries to live a peaceful life.

(05:33):
But after Wallace fights off an English soldier who attempts
to assault Morin, she is captured and publicly executed. In retrabution,
Wallace kills the soldiers, executes the sheriff, and inspires others
to join him in what the Almighty says must be
a fashionable fights as it draws the fightest people in

(05:55):
the rebellion against long Shanks. I with my Irish countrymen,
join Wallace against the English, forcing them to forcing them
out of Scotland. Unfortunately, the Scottish noblemen failed to unify
the clans and they cannot decide.

Speaker 5 (06:11):
Who should be king.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yes, father, you are the king of us. All undeterred,
Wallace decides to take the fight to the English and
sack York to deter him from returning to Scotland. Yes, Father,
the Almighty says, pay attention to this part. Long Shinks,
in order to ensure the victory, personally leads the English
army to stop Wallace. He enlists the aid of a

(06:35):
corrupt Scottish nobleman, coercing them to betray Wallace. I didn't
like them anyway. They were not right in the head.
Escaping their treachery and avoiding assassination attempts, Wallace wages a
protracted gorilla warfare against the English. Unfortunately, Wallace's cop shured, tortured,

(06:56):
and beheaded. His last words call out to his countrymen
was Fritom. Inspired by Wallace's courage and dedication to Scotland's freedom,
the new King of Scotland, Robert the Bruce, leads the
Scottish army against the English and wins Scotland's independence.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
That was most excellently done, Matthew, very very well done.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Thank you. Next time, I'll make the We'll make the
sinofsus Study a little bit longer.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, let's see if we could just do that. We'll
have to find a four hour movie and write a book.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
Yeah, all right, gentlemen. William Wallace Braveheart nineteen ninety five.
I gotta say it opens up rather brilliantly. We get
this wonderful exposition narration about who William Wallace was, and
about Scotland and longshanks, and I thought it was interesting
that we have a narrator that's his voice. I getdn't

(07:58):
quite placed until later on the movie when we learned
that it's actually Robert the Bruce that's kind of given
this opening narration. First are introduced to a young William
Wallace as he's, you know, hanging out with his dad.
His dad has been called to a nobleman's gathering of
all the Scottish nobles to discuss the recent death of

(08:19):
the Scottish King and King Edward the First also known
as Edward Longshanks, his claim to the Scottish throne. We
see that the Wallace has show up late to this meeting,
and William Wallace was supposed to stay home. Turns out
he followed his dad and he saw the brutality that
Edward Longshanks left behind in this classic Shetland hut. I

(08:41):
got to ask, guys, what'd you think of this opening
of the introduction of young William Wallace.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
I really like the way this movie starts. We don't
mess around, we don't have a big credit sequence or
introduction or anything. You get that very quick, brave heart
across the screen and he goes straight in this story
which is actullently just and you're just drawn in instantly.
I mean, you get the little bit of history and
then we get to see, you know, a young William
Wallace and kind of how This is going to lead

(09:06):
him to become the William Wallace that we all know.
I thought it was interesting that long Shanks is like, hey,
your king died without an air. I'm gonna take the
country over basically, but I want you to be on board.
I want to make you part of this so that
we don't have any problems. You know, come under the
banner piece, just each of you, noblemen. One page. That's
it for one squire, and we'll sit down and kind

(09:27):
of work this out. And his way of working this
out is to just slaughter all the noblemen to make
sure there's nobody to oppose him. Fortunately for the Wallace
as they get there a little late and find this.
But you know, William, who's been tagging along we shouldn't
have been and was told to go back home several times,
comes into the hut and seize the atrocity. And this
is going to make a huge impression on him. You're

(09:49):
never going to be able to unsee this, and you're
never going to forget it. And he gets spooped, so
he gets in there and he starts kind of you know,
running between the bodies, so it's like almost his own
house of horrors on top of it. So he's going
to be scarred for life.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
Yeah, as an adult seeing children hung in a hut
like that, that definitely affects you. And it definitely affected
William Wallis. I mean because later on he has a
dream of that little boy talking to him, hanging from
the rafters. Since William was like tagging along, do you
think he's the reason why his dad and brother were
still alive?

Speaker 2 (10:20):
I don't think so. I mean, they caught him, you know,
who knows how soon, because I mean obviously they've been
journeying for a while to get there. Who knows when
they finally realized he was there. I don't think them
stopping the yell at him is really what caused them
to be laid out. Who really knows. I mean, I
guess it's a good explanation as any, but I doubt it.

(10:41):
I mean, because if that was the reason, you would
think he would have picked his son up, brought him
back home, dropped him off like I told you to
stay here, and then went back. You know, I know
my dad was really good at multitasking and yelling at
me and still continue to do whatever it was he
was doing. I would imagined that has been the dad's
through the Yeah.

Speaker 5 (11:00):
Yeah, I think I'd forgotten that they basically have a
kid with a mullet. I didn't know mullets can can
have dreadlocks, but they can. And apparently they all wore
burlop sacks back then, burlap more than just for sacks.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Yes, yeah, I think it was a precursor to their
their kilts. You don't get your kilts to get to
a certain age. I think it's a right of passage.
So yeah, So after all the nobles were killed, the
Wallaces go back home and then they were met by
a couple other clan members and that's when they decide
that they're going to rise up and resist against the English.
They sign up. It's it's Wallace senior and his oldest son.

(11:39):
They take off and there's this great, big battle that occurs,
and of course Williams left left behind at home since
he's the younger one. He has to take care of
the farm. And we get this like little montage of
all the stuff he's doing around around the farm waiting
for his dad to return and his brother to return.
And the return they do. They return on the back
of a cart and that's where we learn what Scottish

(12:03):
barrel rights are, like, I mean, we got to see
them bury their dead. There was this rather interesting scene
where you know, they left the older statesman out and
you know, it definitely scarred William into the fact that
he has another dream. And I gotta say, William's probably
guy have some dreams, bad dreams for several several years.

(12:23):
What did you would you guys think of young William
having to deal with his father's death and then of
course the introduction of his uncle Argyle, most known for
making socks.

Speaker 5 (12:33):
Well, I got to say, I really prefer our gyle
in Diehard to this Argyle. I've seen Brian Cox some
better parts, but this is a bigger movie, so smaller part.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
I can't imagine how hard that would be for a
young boy, especially in that era. The uncertainty of knowing
what's going to happen to you. You know, once you
realize you know, the muzz already have a picture. Now
your father and your older brother are dead. And he
knew since he's see those oxen coming up, and he
tried to turn around, ignore to like, boy, turn around,
you know you need to face this or whatever. So

(13:04):
it was immensely tough. And then we got to see
the burial rights, you know, and some of the you know,
the local clansmen come to attend the funeral. We get
to see a young Marion there, you know, and I
don't know if we really get to feel that she's
his sweetheart at that point, and she seems a little
bit younger to him, and you know, she hands him,

(13:24):
you know, just before she's ready to leave, goes and
picks up a flower which is actual it's a thistle flower,
which is that particular one is the national flower Scotland,
and gives it to him. I don't know if you
guys noticed, but I watched when they handed that and
when they do the handover, they do a real close up. Man,
those hands were huge, Like I was like, those do
not look like kids hands, and they weren't. They actually

(13:45):
shot adult hand.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
She had man hands, Jerry man hands. I know.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
I was like, oh my God, like, look this little
boy's got like massive hands, Like he's gonna of course,
he's gonna be a warrior because he's gonna be able
to hold like the biggest sword on the planet, which
he does, you know, I mean, you know, that's why
here's a big two ended swords.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
What they say about big hands, big sword.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, there you go. You know, for sure, I was
really intrigued. I guess the reason they did that is
they wanted to have the adult hands in there because
it foreshadows their future relationship together. So it's real subtle.
But if you looking at it, you're just like, those
hands are went out of proportion. It was a neat idea.
If that's the real reason why they did it, It's
cute that they have that moment. It's very tender, very touching.

(14:23):
And then you see everybody just kind of leave and
he's just standing there. You're like, what's gonna happen? Because
I was like, I can't believe nobody's taking this boy
with them. But then I'm thinking back at this time,
you weren't exactly really willing to take on an extra child.
And then what do we see but we see his
uncle Argyle come riding up, and I'm thinking, our guy
must be of some kind of nobility or something, because
he's dressed very nice as a super nice horse, all

(14:45):
that kind of stuff, seems super educated. And he takes
him abroad and leaves and educates him so at that
point at least you're like, okay, good, at least somebody's
going to take care of him.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
You definitely get the impression that he's the older, the
older brother. Usually it was the older brother that inherited
the noble title. We learned that Wallace was actually a
not really a nobleman. He was just a radar landlord.
Our guyle was the one that was probably a nobleman.
And maybe his younger brother, William's dad was there to
represent the Wallace clan.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Or maybe he got like the lesser inheritance. You know,
I'm sure you know, like the older son would take
the prominent spot within the family and then maybe he
got like the lesser holdings or whatever. Right, yeah, the family,
you take the back forty and this Oxen. Yeah, I'm
gonna go hang out in the castle. Yeah you get
the swamp, yeah exactly. You know, yeah, yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 4 (15:40):
And you know, I like Brian Cox. I think he's
a great actor. My only regret is that he has
such a small role in this movie. I was I
was kind of disappointed. I was really hoping, you know,
that he would show up later on, maybe we'd get
like some kind of flashback sequence to when William was
growing up under our gyle's wing. Nope, nope, we just
get well, they're right off after they had this lovely speech,

(16:04):
and then we come back and William Wallace is now
an adult. I do want to mention one other thing.
I thought it was weird that, you know, the little
girl who we or later is Mirran.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
You know, that's the only scene that we see her in,
and it just seemed really really unusual for me that
he would remember that little girl and then when he
gets older, recognized her in a crowd of everyone else
at a wedding part.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
I mean, I can see him remembering her because I
mean it's a very you're not going to forget the
funeral of your father, right and your brother, you know
what I mean. He had a very traumatic experience and
she's the only one that really reached out to him.
So I can see him remembering her but identifying her
years later when he comes back. I'm with you, like,

(16:50):
unless somebody's like, oh, yeah, that's her over there or something,
I think maybe we just got to take a leap
that somebody pointed her out to him. It was definitely
a let's move the story along. We don't need to
get too deep here kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
Was touching that later on we learned that he kept
that flower. It was a very touching moment between the
two kids. How about you, Joy, what did you think
of the whole initial love connection between these two people.

Speaker 5 (17:11):
It's lost on me. I was too busy noticing that
mel Gibson has hair extensions. Most interesting thing to me
is the guy with the scar on his face is
also in Gladiator, and Braveheart and Gladiator have been sold
together in a bundle. And it's got this guy who's
not in a lot of movies with the big scar
on his fucking face. And then he kisses some girl

(17:35):
with I don't know, I don't know how you describe it.
Very Scottish features, sad, and he's super young in this movie.
He's got you know what was it? Five six years
later he does Gladiator.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
I know you're talking about now this scotsman who's actually
getting married.

Speaker 5 (17:52):
Yeah, and she like rubs her dose on his face
out of just like okay, you know, if you're an eskimo,
is you missed his nose. It's just I don't know,
like there's a lot of over over dramatic parts in
this movie. And I mean we were talking about dream
sequences and nightmares. It's like I was waiting for groundskeeper
Willie to show up in his Freddy Garb scare the

(18:13):
shit out of William Wallace. I mean, quick.

Speaker 4 (18:15):
Question for you guys, is this is Braveheart the first
movie that Mel Gibson directed.

Speaker 5 (18:22):
That's an excellent question. Let's find out.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
I would almost have to say, no, there were a
lot of scenes that seemed like relatively overly dramatics.

Speaker 5 (18:29):
Oh, it's his second directing credit. Okay, the first one's
Man Without a Face. Do you remember that?

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (18:37):
I don't remember that movie. Yeah, because I mean the
woman quelling, the fight did seem very overly dramatic, and
I would almost like chalk it up to like first
time directors. Let's go ahead and talk about then the uh,
you know, the wedding sequence in which William Wallace shows up.
They had the whole declaration by Longshanks about the noble,
the English nobleman is able to enact Prema noctra, the

(19:00):
Scottish guys are about ready to attack the English noble
who came for the woman for the bride, And yeah,
it was very overly dramatic where she just kind of
like quelled the fight. What about you, Tim, would you
think of the whole wedding sequence.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
It was sort of the purpose to set the stage
for why they hate the English for sure. I mean,
even though that never actually happened in England, was a
primary natus I think is what they called it.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yeah, it's a Latin term. Yeah, I didn't bother looking
it up, but I just know that it means that
like the lord of the land gets basically first DIBs
on a married woman.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, basically the nobleman or a king or whatever gets
first divs. And that actually never was done in Britain
or Ireland at all because when they as a conquest,
it was such a tenuous situation to be able to
even hold the lands there, and if you started doing
something like that it would even cause more problems and rebellion.
It was practiced in your proper but never in England.

(20:04):
But nonetheless it was it was a good, uh, you know,
thing to put in the movie as another reason why
the Scottish, you know, hate the English, because you know,
their whole thing is if we can't kill the Scottish,
then we'll just breed him out, you know. So it's
like it's like Palpatine level evil there, you know, plus
playing the long game on top of it. But the

(20:25):
same with the woman, know, yeah, kind of. It's it's
the one part of this movie I will say it's
over the top. It's just it was weird. It was
it was poorly done. I guess it's just I mean
I get that she's like trying to calm her husband down,
but it was too over the top and its imagery.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
There is there is a spot with the wedding that
I kind of glossed over, and I'm gonna circle back
around to it. But we're introduced to a character that
we saw when William Wallace was younger, and the gentleman's
name is Hamish and it was his childhood Fred. You know.
They pretend to be fighting the English when they were younger.

(21:02):
And it turns out that Hamish is played by the
wonderful Irish actor dom Hall Gleeson, which watching this movie
is like, holy cow, I forgot how young he looks
in this movie. You know, it was hard, hard to
realize that Matt I Moody himself was once a young
man with a full beard. They had this this feats
of strength where they're like tossing boulders because the Scottish

(21:23):
can't train with weapons, so they use whatever they have
around them. He and mel get into a little dick
measuring contest.

Speaker 5 (21:29):
Yeah. I was gonna say pissing contest, but like, yeah,
that's that's even better.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Yeah, because you know Hamish the city. They're throwing boulders
and and William Wallace calls him out and says, hey
you could you could crush a man like that. And
sure enough, you know, William Wallace is able to dodge
out of the big stone and then hurls a little
rock very David and Goliath at Hamish.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
He doesn't even dodge. Yeah, Like he's like you movies,
like nope, I won't.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
And he didn't.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, which was scott a gutsy. That's a big ass
rock YEP.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
The fact that Hamish thin says, oh, I should have
remembered the rocks thought that was kind of a fun, human,
humorous sequence, just to reintroduce this old friendship between the
two gentlemen. Here's William Wallace who hasn't seen people probably
in like maybe a decade and a half and he's
recognizing people. I realize that some people don't change that much,
but you know, you go from a little kid to

(22:19):
having a full beard. Yeah, there's just some things that
I think are a little off about that.

Speaker 5 (22:24):
Well, they got to call it out because the older
characters look nothing like the younger characters, to say, hello, audience,
this is this person. I guess there's not as big
of an age difference as I thought. Mel Gibson's sixty nine.
Brendan Gleeson is seventy.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
My apologies, I called him Dom Hole Dom Hall Glease Cinema.
That's his son, So that's okay.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
So I find that the name of the actor with
the real scar in his face, Tommy flan Again, one
of the few actual Scottish people in this movie. Right, well,
golf clap Tommy flan Again, you're actually Scottish.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
Tommy's actually a good character actor. I've seen him in
a lot of other things, you know, because his scars
definitely give him that distinct feature. I know. I realize
I'm kind of bouncing around here at the opening sequence,
but there's just so much great stuff about Brave Heart
that's kind of hard to kind of tackle down. But
it is neat how we had foreshadowing of what's going
to happen later on with Tommy Flanagan. But before we
get into that, Tim, what did you think of the

(23:19):
introduction of Hamish.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
It's entertaining. I mean, we've all seen the Scottish feats
of strength. I mean they tend to do that at
festivals and things like that, so this is if you've
ever been to any kind of medieval Renaissance fair or
anything like that, and any reenactments, they do that kind
of stuff. And I thought it was pretty entertaining. It
was a little weird that again Mel Gibson shows up
and he just knows all these people. But you know,

(23:40):
I don't know if it's the first encounter since he's
been back and he's just seen all these people for
the first time, or if he's been there for a
few days and words out again. Clans pretty small community,
you know, everybody kind of knows everybody. So when the
new guy shows up out of nowhere, everybody kind of
knows it looks like somebody's at the Wallace place. Must
be that William Wallace's back or whatever. Yeah, I don't know. Oh,
they could have done a little better. But I think

(24:02):
we're so anxious to get into it that we're willing
to skim here in order to get more time on
the parts that we really want to see, you know,
So again a little clumsy. I'm willing to let that
go because there's so much good stuff in this film,
and I think they've put the focus where it needs
to be later on, where at least where I want it,
you know, during the battles and things like that.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
Right. Yeah, even though this is a revenge love story,
they really don't put a whole lot into the love
story itself.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
I think it's just enough to get the idea across,
you know, Like they do spend a little time in
this coming up, I mean, I think enough that establishes
the love that the characters have for each other and
the need for revenge after the fact. It's not only
going to be that, but it stems off of what
he's already endured between the horrors that he's witnessed as
a child, the loss of his parents at the hands

(24:53):
of the English, and now this is gonna be the
final straw.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
Coming up right, Yes, And that of course brings us
to our next spot, is you know, long Shanks. You know,
we flash over to the English side of the story
and long Shank has arranged a marriage with his son
who looks very effeminate in my opinion, to French princess Isabella,
who is the daughter of long Shank's French nemesis, And

(25:17):
of course that kind of helps create a bond between
the two and kind of almost sits in like a
truce between them. Isabella's kind of reluctant in a way
to marry him, because I mean she can kind of
tell that he's not into women. There's this this non
love connection between those two characters. Now we flash back
to our Scottish characters. You know, William Wallace has found

(25:38):
the little girl that he apparently was infatuated with the
entire time that he was back in his uncle's care,
Maron mccleannig. Wallace basically takes her out, writing and her
father's a little bit like, well you can date my
daughter when you prove to me that you can live
in peace, or a subtle undertone that you know, I
think his father of Marie wants wall Is to kind

(26:01):
of step up and be more of a man and
help them route out the English did I get that
interpretation a little off.

Speaker 5 (26:09):
Well, I think you bring up a good point in
your confusion, is that there's a lot going on in
this movie, so much so that I'm mixed up the
two fifty seven year old actresses. My bad. So Catherine
McCormick plays and it's hard to say her name for
me Moreau, Moreau, Moron, Okay, she's fifty three, mel Gibson

(26:31):
sixty nine. Sixteen years difference between William Wallace and the girl. Again,
I don't think William was sixteen years older than the
little girl in that scene. Maybe how old do you
think he looked thirteen at most? Maybe ten or eleven twelve.

Speaker 4 (26:48):
I'd put him around like preteens, like eleven twelve, he's.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
A tween, and then she was probably like five or
six or something like that. But yeah, that's something that, like,
I know, I'm babbling on about it. It bothers me
when I watch The Week. It takes me out of
the movie. I feel like I'm thinking about what I'm
seeing too much in the actors and not caring enough
about the character.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
Gotcha, So you were pulled out of the movie. How
about you, Tim What did you think about the whole
love sequence in the courting, And I don't always agree
with Joey, but I do have to agree that mel
Gibson looks a little too old for the actress playing
the role of Mirron. But I'm willing to let it slide,
since you know, the love story really isn't as pivotal.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
But it's funny you say that, Matt, because actually mel
Gibson didn't want to play William Wallace. He's like, I'm
too old to play this role. He wanted to actually
have another actor play it, and the studio said, if
there's no mel Gibson playing William Wallace, there's no Brave Heart.
So they basically forced him into the role, even though
he thought he was too old for it at that time.

(27:48):
I don't know. I mean the age difference where you're like,
all that kind of takes me out of But think
about the times back then, you didn't live to be along,
and it wasn't uncommon for older men to marry younger girls. True,
it just wasn't back then a kind of a given.
I don't know where that begins and where that ends,
but I don't think it's uncommon back then at all.
I mean especially like kings, they discard their old wives,

(28:09):
have them killed so they can marry younger women. Yeah,
I don't think it's too too out of place. We're
just trying to, like eyeball through the lens of today,
and I think you have to take yourself out of
that a little bit. Still, the love story there was
just enough there to serve the purpose. He comes back,
she's supposedly his love from childhood. They kind of reconnect.

(28:30):
He courts or it's a short courting, because if you
did a long courting, we put a whole another hour
onto this movie. I mean you would. I mean, so
it shows, you know, he's infatuated with her, and knowing
that you know what the English have in place now
as far as you know, taking the bride on their
wedding night, you know, noble media able to do that.
He's like, we can't pursue this out in the open,

(28:50):
because if we do, your parents will want to have
a wedding and stuff, and that's what's going to happen.
So they decide to you know, hurry up, kind of
accelerate their courtship and marry and seek so that you know,
no English nobleman will ever be able to put their
hands on her because she'll be technically an old married regardless,
it's not going to work out because you know, some
English soldier sees her decides that, you know, I think

(29:13):
I want a piece of that action and goes after her. Basically,
that leads us to the English side of this story
where you got long Shank's son, Prince Edward, you know,
the second and yeah, he's he's definitely playing for the
other side of the other team. There's no doubt about it.
I mean, they doesn't even pretend like that's not really happening.

(29:33):
I mean even when he's getting married to the princess, which,
as you point out, is a prince, you know, Princess
of Isabella from France. Not uncommon thing for you to
marry the you know, marry your children to your enemy
to help strengthen the houses and give them a reason
not to fight. So not an uncommon move back then.
And he should be super excited because she's a smoke show.
Oh yeah, yeah, but he's glancing over his showly the

(29:55):
whole time, looking at his love interests that we see,
and the king knows he looks over with the test.

Speaker 5 (30:01):
There's a lot of set up just just for a
big payoff later in the movie, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah. Well, and there's even question that was Prince Edward
actually you know gay, because there's a lot of speculation
that he was not, and that was actually a rumor,
uh spread by the enemies of England to defame the
throne or defame him, so, you know, to make him
look weaker. Because even there's that comment later who's like,

(30:25):
you know, they get a load of my son, they'll
just invade just by because they think that he's got
you know there, there's there's no manliness there to stop
an invasion, is basically what he says later on.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
Yeah, these weren't tolerant times.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, they are not tolerant times at all, and they're
using that for, you know, to move the story along
in this and also you know, leads us to what's
going to be a loveless marriage. And you know, they've
made the comment that long Shanks will never have air
through his son unless he you know, basically you know,
creates his own with the princess kind of thing. So
there's talk like that, which I don't think would be

(31:01):
something that would not necessarily not be practiced back then too,
you know, I mean, you know, got to keep the
bloodline going kind of thing. So it's definitely a very
strong point, even though it caused a lot of contention
the films that there was a lot of people saying,
you know, Gibson was a homophobe and you know, shouldn't
have portrayed him like that, and so on and so forth.

(31:21):
But Gibson didn't write the movie. Again, he's starring in it,
he's directing it. But you know, again it was Randa
Wallace that wrote the movie. You know, mel Gibson had
nothing to do with it. So I think it was
unfair that people started projecting that onto him when he's like,
look at this is the script I was handed, This
is the thing I'm directing. I didn't write it, you know,
so don't don't come knocking on my door. But I

(31:41):
guess when you're starring and directing in it, you're the guy.
You're the face of the movie. So you're going to
get the ire of people for that. Then that's going
to lead us to our next scene, which I'll let
you set up now.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
All right, So here we are William Wallace and Muran
wind Up writing off and having a secret wedding to
avoid the prema octra. You know. The next day after
after Wallace is married, kind of following his wife, you know,
he's he's in love, she's in love, and they're kind
of like secretly seeing each other. And then that's when

(32:13):
she gets she gets noticed by that skeazy looking English
guy that we had seen earlier in the movie, and
he basically attacks her like he's gonna, he's gonna, he's
gonna rape a good old William Wallace is right there
to save her, and uh, he manages to get away,
but they managed to capture poor Mirn and our Sheriff
of Rottingham decides to make an example of her and

(32:36):
executes her right there in the in the village square,
and of course that enrages William Wallace and we probably
get the best revenge on somebody who has killed his wife.
And I just thought it was really neat that, you know,
he sneaks in, or it doesn't really sneak in, but
he you know, he comes into the camp and he

(32:57):
sneaks that weapon in and he just told annihilates like
six guys before anyone else in the in the Scottish
clan helps him out, and I just got to say
that this is probably where the powder keg is lit
on this entire movie, and we just it just keeps
ramping up from here.

Speaker 5 (33:13):
What's the proper name of that weapon? I want to
keep calling it a mace, but I know that I
think I believe a mace is when it's on a stick.

Speaker 4 (33:19):
Yes, a mace. When's a stick? I want to say,
that's a.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Flail or a morning star? Yeah, when he got the
stick with the chain and like the ball the spikes
on it. Yeah, yeah, I'd see their morning star or flail.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
With William Wallace going to town. What did you guys
think of that? That whole sequence, Well, we.

Speaker 5 (33:35):
Get to see that from the rear there. There there's
a special effect in the slitting of the throat, but
we don't see the gore. And then after William has
his revenge and he does a kouda ground the guy
who killed her against the same pole, we see the
reverse shot and we see a close up to the gore.
So they definitely did it more tasteful but still horrific.

(33:57):
When she dies versus this gross bleeding wound that you
really get to like stare into the makeup effects for
the asshole, the executioner.

Speaker 4 (34:07):
Right, what how about you, Tim, what'd you think of
the sequence?

Speaker 2 (34:10):
I mean, it's it's the best catalyst ever. I mean,
it's it's a tragedy. It's it's horrible to watch, but
I mean it's gonna set up this movie in the
best way. I mean as far as becoming the ultimate
revenge story. I mean, it starts off with a guy
who just wants to live peacefully and live with his
you know, the love of his life. She unfortunately, you know,

(34:31):
almost raped, defends herself, is basically captured and accused of
attacking one of the King's guards because you know, and
that cannot happen because of the attack on the king's
guard is an attack on the king himself. So she's
going to be made an example of and they slit
her throat, and I mean it's it's brutal to watch.
I mean, you know, as far as the throat slitting goes,
but it really solidifies your you know, your support of Wallace,

(34:56):
and it it's what solidifies the support of the clansmen,
because what does Wallace do. They know that he's out there,
they know that you know, she had some assistance and
they're waiting for him to show up. And man, he
comes in and he starts, you know, laying waste to
the English Guards and what happens. But the rest of
the klansmen join in. This is going to be the

(35:18):
beginning of the rebellion because when it's all over, he's like, look,
you know, that's it. Everybody go home. They're like, what
do you mean go home? When word of this gets out,
they're going to burn every village that they come upon. Like,
none of us will ever know peace again. So you've,
as you said, you've lit the powder.

Speaker 5 (35:33):
Keke.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
We got to roll with it now, like we you know,
all we can do is move forward and start to
fight for our freedom and independence. It instantly puts you
in the William Wallace camp. You're just like, no, this
justice must be rectified. You know, this injustice. So I
thought it was. It was fantastic in that regard. It's
pretty brutal to watch forget her next slit, I mean,
and this is only the beginning of what we're about

(35:56):
to witness. And they had to walk a very thin
line on this because were pretty much getting an NC
seventeen rating, and they had to really edit and tone
down a lot of the scenes in this film in
order to just get an R for brutal bit of
a you know, medieval warfare.

Speaker 5 (36:10):
You got to think, like, was it two or three
years later we have the first Lord of the Rings
movie and you've got severed heads getting thrown over a
castle wall and they give it a PG.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
It was like four years later because the first one
came out in ninety nine.

Speaker 5 (36:23):
I want to say, was it okay? But it's the
same decade?

Speaker 4 (36:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Man?

Speaker 5 (36:27):
And now do they really even censor those scenes much
on TV? Because the same channels that might show Braveheart
are showing you know, The Walking Dead, which in its
current iteration, we're hitting zombies in the head with a
morning star. Yeah, and it's and we're seeing everything.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Standards have changed, for sure, but I mean back then
they were still a little tighter. And I mean we're
talking about it being a super goering movie. So can
you imagine what we didn't see?

Speaker 5 (36:54):
Right?

Speaker 2 (36:55):
I mean, what is it? I mean they cut their
Gifson said, there is a four hour cut of this
movie out there. No, man, they cut an entire hour
of blood and gore off of this movie because they
were trying to get that.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
I do not believe that at all. I think he
took an hour of exposition out of more over dramatic nonsense.
I mean this this guy's first directing credit. Let let's
remember is mel Gibson goes back to school. Mel Gibson
teaches Hamlet to a group of high school drama students,
so he loves the stage play stuff. Before that, he

(37:30):
was so called directing credit is mel Gibson's unauthorized video
diary on I don't know which movie he was doing.
And then he does mel Gibson's video diary too on
Lethal Weapon three. He's the director of that, and then
he jumps right into a movie without Man, Without a Face,
and then Braveheart. So he's got one movie credit behind him,
and the other three things are like TV specials and

(37:52):
the video diary sound like, you know, the modern equivalent
of blogging on the movie set, right, This is stage
play acting. To me, it's it's some of it's the
action is amazing, But you got to like say to yourself,
it's like, how much of that is the stunt choreographer
and the special effects department and the director of photography.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
I know everything I read said he was directing the
action too, and it was such a large scale action
that they had two stunt or two basically stunt coordinator
choreographers out there working with it because they had like
sixteen hundred extras doing these battle scenes. They were huge.
They had. The action was the the FCA, so it's

(38:32):
basically the Reserve Irish Army that was out there. They
would like literally come in, dress them up like klansmen
and English soldiers and they would fight. So, I mean,
you got sixteen hundred guys fighting out on these fields.
That's a lot of cameras, a lot of directing going on,
and a lot of guys fighting from a lot of
different angles. So I could see them having all that
footage because even in Lord of the Rings a lot

(38:53):
of it was done with CG. We watched the theatrical version,
and then what do we get when we watched the
you know, the extended releases that they had. It was
like way bigger battles because you're going to spend a
lot of time and effort on that, and he he did.
These battles were extraordinary when you watch them. We even
talked about our disappointment during what was money python because

(39:14):
you think you're going to see this giant, you know,
Brave Heart kind of scene, and they didn't have the
money to do it right. They ended it went a
different direction. So but he had the cash, he had
the you know, the financing behind it, and the studio
completely behind this. So I think that the footage is
out there for sure, because you're really gonna want to
maximize your fighting scenes, that's what people are coming to see.

Speaker 5 (39:33):
But they released extended editions of that, and those were
often effects heavy scenes that they put the money into
finishing the effects. But this Brave Heart, other than probably
cutting out some things in the background, like where they're like,
you know, literally hiding some landscapes where like they maybe
they had lights or guys with bounce cards and stuff

(39:53):
like that, they weren't using a whole lot of digital
effects in this movie. So if if those battles scenes
were really as long as they you say they were,
why hasn't that come out on video? That seems like
they're leaving money on the table. Now, it's possible that
they literally hit the cutting room floor and they're not
in a state where they're watchable or the only thing
that exists are vhs, you know, dailies that like look

(40:17):
like shit, and maybe that's why they haven't included that
extra content in a release.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
He said, the initial film was like four hours long,
and they forced him to cut it down, and so
they sat and really cut it down to the film
that we have now. So and he said it's not
in an assembled state anymore. But he said, if the
Paramount was in it, I think it's paramount can put
this out. He said, if they're interested in it, I
would love to come back and reassemble that into a

(40:42):
four hour special edition cut and release it.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
Well, if if any year they would do that, it
would be this year. Considering the movie is now thirty
years old.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
I pay money for it. I go out by the hell,
I buy the HD.

Speaker 5 (40:55):
This man Tim has already spent a galactic amount too
much on a certain Blu ray.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
Well let's uh, let's let's segue back into the actual
storyline of the movie. Now that we've we've gone off
on a on a directing tangent and a blue ray tangent.
But yeah, so it's it's rather rather cool that we
start off with just this little battle in which William
Wallace gets his revenge, and two other klansmen on the
other side of the hill find out about it and

(41:23):
they come by to help him fight, and that's when
they decide to step it up and they go from
fighting the sheriff, now he's going after the nobleman. And
I thought it was clever that fights with his head,
not necessarily just his sword. And they managed to sack
a bunch of English soldiers, steal their uniforms and ride

(41:43):
right into the noble the nobleman's castle and lay waste
to him. And I thought that was a phenomenal idea.
It's like showing up as a as a wolf in
sheep's clothing to take out the nobleman. And I thought,
I thought that was fantastic. The nobleman gets killed by
the guy Tommy Flanneing and the guy with the with
the scars, because you know he wanted revenge as a husband.

(42:06):
What did what did you think of that that sequence?

Speaker 2 (42:08):
Tim Oh, I mean, it's yeah, it is. It's fantastic.
Mean the idea that they, you know, sack all those
English soldiers then ride right in under their noses as
the English soldiers and then just disarmed all the English,
not even having to fight him. And then Morrison, who's
Tommy Flan again. He basically comes up to that English
nobleman and he's like, I know who you are. He's
like you do, and he's like, hey, you know, it

(42:30):
was my right. It's my right as English homes to
do what I did. And he's like, and it's my
you know, it's my right as a husband to do
what I'm about to do, and he just fucking kills
him right there. I mean, just dude, you're just like, yes,
that's what you get, you son of a bitch, you know.
And I like that He basically tells everybody, was like,
look all the rest of you're gonna go free back
to England and tell them, you know, never to come

(42:51):
back that Scottish you know that Scotland's sons and daughters
are free and you're no longer welcome here. You know.
I thought that was fantastic. It's just it's such a power,
powerful scene and you're just like, yes, you know, finally
there's some justice. This, this is how this should go,
and it and it only helps to build his reputation.
And yeah, normally anybody else that would take a place
like that be like okay, now we're got a garrison

(43:12):
this and build up our forces like burn it, burn
it to the ground. And that's that's what they said,
you know, William Wallace was about I did read a
little bit about it, like you know, the guys just
smell like smoke all the time because he just burned
everything and came into contact. Guy was always setting everything
on fire across the country as he chased the English.
So I kind of made me chuckle. But yeah, it's
it's just a great scene. I really really liked it

(43:35):
and I thought it was fitting that we got to
see Morris and get his revenge on the man who
defiled his wife on their wedding nights.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
Yeah, fantastic.

Speaker 5 (43:44):
It's a it's a clever scene. It's fun to watch
them talking about one hundred men oh no, and know
it's more like fifty of them and it's like rubbing
it right in their nose before they kill one man
and spare the rest and just you know, give him
a message, just come back and you know, tell them
we're free here in Scotland. It was it was a
clever scene. It's one is one of the more fun

(44:05):
scenes to watch and it does not drag unlike the
first third of the movie.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah, so you know, William Wallace is out there. He's
routing the English, sending them home, and Longshank gets word
about it, and that's when he orders his son to
stop Wallace. While Longshanks takes off to France to campaign
over there, his son, who's pretty much an app commander,
can't route out Wallace sends a troop to Sterling Castle

(44:30):
and that's where Wallace manages to defeat the army. And
at that point he's also kind of unifying the local
people in Scotland. You know, everyone's falling in behind William Wallace.
And we get this wonderful speech by Wallace when he
shows up to help two of two of the Scottish

(44:51):
noblemen who have come out to Sterling who more or
less negotiate a surrender, some kind of way to broke
her peace with the English. And you know, Wallace shows
up and he's got his face painted and we had
this wonderful speech. And it always gets me in these movies.
You know, we have you know, leagues of soldiers and

(45:12):
the one guy that's right along on the horse and
he's making this huge speech. I can't help but feel
sorry for the guy weigh in the back because you
know he's not hearing a single thing that Wallace is saying.
No matter how loud he shouts. The speech is just
drives the Scottish crazy. It unifies them and it really
moves the story along as well as it's it's iconic.

(45:34):
So what did you guys think of this rousing speech?

Speaker 2 (45:36):
I love this scene. I mean because all the Scottish men,
you know, the clans from the lowlands to the Highlands,
have heard about William Wallace. They know there's a battle coming.
Then they all made up in this hill, you know,
and you see the Scottish first, you're like, oh yeah,
look at it. There's a lot of Scottish here. And
then they pan that camera on and then he's seeing
the English and there's a shit metric ton of the English.

(45:57):
It's just like, wow, that is a lot of dudes,
you know. So it's you know, and it's cool because
when you think about again, none of this is CG.
These are literally, you know, irishman all dressed up and
all these parts and out on that field, you know,
filming this. So it starts to dishearten the Scotch. They're like,
you know, I didn't come to die. No, let's just
go home or whatever. And the noblemen are like, yeah,

(46:19):
I don't think this is worth it. We just need to,
you know, get terms and move on or whatever. And
then incomes Wallace, you know, and they see him. They're like,
holy shit, I think that's William Wallace. You know, that's
where a bunch of like that can't be him. He's like,
it is, and you know, he rides in there and
he sees them kind of turn around. He's like, where
are you guys go? And you know, I see all
my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny. You know, we

(46:40):
come to fight as free men, and won't you fight
for freedom? And they're like, we didn't come to fight this.
And he's like, well, you know, he's like what will
you do. He's like, well, turn and we'll go home
and we'll live. And he's like, you might live, but
I think the most powerful part that speech is you'll
live for a while, but you know, would you be
willing to trade all the days from this day to
that day for just a taste of freedom? And it's
just inspires that I thought it was It's funny though

(47:04):
when you watch, because he's given the speech and that
horse is just moving back and forth and back and forth.
And what I read is that the horse there was
something about his voice that bothered the horse. Every time
Bill gets some wood yell, the horse would move. So
he's trying to give this speech on camera. He cannot
get this damn horse to stand still, so that's why
he's going back and forth. You're getting this major movement

(47:27):
and him kind of twirling around and having to look
at the crowd. So it had to be incredibly hard
for him to do that. When you watch it though,
you don't really think about it at first, but now
that you know, I read that and was pointing out
to me like, oh, yeah, that horse really is moving
a lot. You think you just kind of stand and
scream at everybody.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
Yeah, it is. It is really great to watch, and
you know, I think it really is clever too, where
when he shows up and everyone's like, oh, that's William
Wallace and so people are like, well I expected him
to be taller, and you know, he kind of calls
out all the rumors about him. You know, He's like,
oh yeah, and if I was you know, the real
William Wallace, I'd be able to kill all the Englishmen
by shooting fire from my eyes.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 5 (48:01):
It was.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
It was funny when he plays on his own like
kind of legend.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
Yeah, what about you, Joy, what'd you think of the
of the whole fight sequence and the speech.

Speaker 5 (48:10):
Well, I mean obviously the blue makeup, which turns out
to be historically in inaccurate. Like I guess William Wallas
would have never worn the blue blue paint because I
had to do with like a group that was not
he wasn't affiliated with. But it looks awesome and that's
what lives on more than anything else in this movie,
is that blue paint. I do think that we get

(48:30):
to see the mel Gibson we're familiar with where we're
getting him. He's mugging for the camera. He's making a
few faces here and there, and it had little little
little taste of Murtaw from lethal Weapon. You don't see
a lot of it. I mean, it's he's certainly not
you know, quoting the Three Stooges or anything like that,
but we see him mug a little bit and it fun.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
He does a lot of acting with his eyes and
do you see that crazy eye with the Murtaker or
not birth Murtab with the Riggs Riggs thank you with
the Riggs character.

Speaker 5 (49:00):
Also, you're right, it is he played Rigs. Shame on me,
that Rigs crazy eye. You get a little bit of
that crazy eye in this too. Like Mel Gibson is
really good at working his eyes, you know, like using
them the great effect. But we did get We've got
a lot of ass, and it's not the kind of
ass I like to see in film. But before we
get the ass, we got the dick first. Yeah, and

(49:24):
it's it's a really far away shot. But it's like, wow,
that was a lot of full frontal and they get
away with it because you know it is you know.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
It's so far away. Yeah, yeah, it's it's a it's
a war sequence. And the Highlanders did used to do that.
They would they would antagonize their their enemies.

Speaker 5 (49:43):
Yeah, I've heard of the term showing your ass but
not flashing your cock the especially on a battlefield. Never
heard of that before This movie a very unique. I
think might be the only film where we see that.
I love the brutal arrows coming down and the the joke. Essentially,
it's a visual joke. One guy just didn't get his

(50:05):
ass put away in time and gets an arrow in
the ass. I mean, it could have been more brutal
unless it went right in the crack. I have to
rewind and watch that multiple times every time it comes on, you.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
Know, speaking of battle sequences, And I don't remember where
it was at, but I do know that much like
Saving Private Ryan, he did hire some amputees because there
was a scene where one of the Englishmen gets their
leg cut off, very much like you know Monty Python
in the Holy Grail.

Speaker 5 (50:33):
So they're cutting off a fake leg from a person
who really lacks. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
And the other thing that I also wanted to mention
about the whole battle sequence is I can't help but
feel kind of sorry for those guys that march for
days on end to get trip to the battlefield and
they get the unlucky task of getting skewered through the
neck by an arrow. I mean, you don't even get
a chance to go out and be to fight somebody

(51:00):
taking out right away.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Well, the other thing that I think is funny too,
since we want to talk about some of the wounds.
Uh So, Elder Campbell, do you realize every battle the
elder Campbell takes some kind of horrific wound.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
And the first one he takes an arrow in the chest,
and then they gotta, you know, they break it off,
and then they pull it out and they gotta you know,
cauterize them. And in this one he loses a hand, yes, so,
and and then the third one, when he finally goes
through the last one, he's gonna take an axe into
the gut. So that guy, he takes a beating all
the way through this. That is one tough old bastard.
Let me tell you.

Speaker 4 (51:37):
You know, I was watching this my kids, and and
my son's like, I like that guy. He keeps he
keeps coming back. He's he's always fighting that. I like
that guy.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
I lose a hand, I'm never going I'm done. Yeah,
I'm done. I'm out. He's like, nope, just wrap me
up and send me to the next battle. I'm good
to go.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
You know, put an axe on the end of it all,
fights with it with an axe on the end of
my arm.

Speaker 5 (51:58):
Yeah. Uh, you know, we overlook that this This is
the scene in the film that becomes a meme that
is very very much used regarding sales and the lower
lowering of prices, and that is hold when he's telling
the men to hold with the blue man on his face.

(52:20):
We see it a lot on social media when someone's
advertising a price and people think, Nope, nope, nope, it's
not low enough yet. Hold. And you could thank William
Wallace for assembling the Internet and telling them to be
cheap bastards and pay less money.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Well, we should probably take a bak to talk about
the whole horse thing too, because that was a stroke
of brilliance. Like how do you defeat you know, heavy cavalry.
You bring giant ass trees. Yeah, cut points to the
end of them, and then you know, bring him up.
I mean that was like really cool when he did that.
I was like, man, that is just brilliant. Those poor
horses actually, that was the other thing I was going
to bring up. They didn't do anything wrong. Oh yeah,

(53:00):
if they were real horses. Yeah, But I mean those
horses look freaking fantastic and they're not real. So those
horses are actually mechanical horses that they designed specifically for
the sequence. They're like two hundred pounds a piece and
they're fueled by nitrogen cylinders and they propel them at
like thirty miles per hour on twenty foot tracks, and
so they were propelling those horses into those basically into

(53:23):
those spears and stuff. It was so bad that they
actually had a animal rights group come in and like
basically come after them about that, and they had to
sit them down and let them watch the daily so
they could see, you know, the stuff that you normally
wouldn't see in the movie edit, like all the mechanical stuff, like, look,
they're actual mechanical horses. They are not real. Gibson was like, look,
I'll pay anybody five dollars a piece for every horse

(53:46):
they can point out to me that ain't real, and
nobody's ever been able to do it disposably. But they
look really good. They look very realistic.

Speaker 4 (53:52):
And that's yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
It paid off because it made that scene just spectacular,
watching all those horses and knights and stuff go flying
into those those trees. It was just fantastic.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
Watch again, a solid point that Wallace is thinking with
his head and not you know, and and coming up
with ideas to solve problems that he hasn't gotten to
yet with with the English. And I think with those spears,
we we kind of also glossed over the introduction of
another character, which then leads to why Wallas is wearing

(54:26):
blue blue paint? Is that we get we get an
introduction to Steven the Irishman, the crazy Irishman, who.

Speaker 5 (54:32):
Is the crazy Scottish guy who plays an Irishman. Yeah, yeah,
not only in this movie, but in The Departed. Yeah, mother,
I'm gonna be late for dinner.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
And of course, you know he has his own island,
my island, but yeah, I thought it was neat that.
You know, we get introduced to this character, Stephen before
the big battle, and Stephen proves his effectiveness by routing
an assassin that was going to kill William Waller.

Speaker 5 (55:00):
Here we have some more dark humor because he says
I didn't like him an he wasn't right.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
He's probably my favorite character in this movie. I mean,
he's just for the comedy relief he adds in there.
His character is phenomenal. I only wish they would have
had it even more screen time with him, especially with
his line.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Some of the best quotes in that just the talk
of the God. And you know, my favorite one is
you know when he's like there you speak to gall
Miiley goes, yes, often an irishmiths must speak to God
to talk to his equal, you know, just things like that.
It's just fantastic.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
Yeah. Yeah, he's definitely my favorite character in the movie.
But you know, I like how they were having that
discussion about the spirits and you kind of forget about that,
and then it shows up at the battle and I
thought that was clever. You know, we established it in
that little scene kind of a throwaway line, and here
they're using it to solidly use it to defeat the cavalry,

(55:56):
and thanks to Wallace's use of of battle strategy, they
are able to win the day. And then along with that,
we get an introduction to Robert the Bruce. You know,
he's he's a character that kind of pops up throughout
the movie and we see that he's the one guy
that could possibly be the King of Scotland and he's

(56:21):
been I wouldn't say following his father's machinations, but kind
of like asking his father for advice as he's trying
to work his way through the nobles, and he hears
about William Wallace, and we get a lot of like
what I would consider the Phantom Menace version of the story.
You know, you get to see all the political moves
going on, and it's actually Robert the Bruce that winds

(56:43):
up fully embracing William Wallace and knights him as defender
of Scotland. Wonderful sequence of him getting knighted and receiving
the I guess the keys to the Kingdom in a way.
You know, Hamish is there and Steven's there, and you
know Wallace gives his honor guard to these two gentlemen,

(57:03):
and we get to see what's going on with the nobles.
Like I said, we get a lot of a lot
of political intrigue within these few scenes, definite exposition, and
I think it's done rather well to help move the
storyline along, so you kind of know what's going on
with attention with everybody, but at the seems that not
overly hitting us over the head with the stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
I mean, the nobles are exactly what you think they
would be. They're they're men who are afraid to lose
their position. They don't want to rock the boat too much.
I mean even when they're first deal with the English,
like well, let's just go out and hear what they
have to say, and you know, we'll make a deal
or whatever. They're you know, they're all into making sure
they secure their titles and land and things like that.
They don't really want freedom for Scotland. They just want

(57:45):
to expand their holdings. So it's you know, it's the
corruption you would expect in government through the nobles. You know.
Robert Bruce Bean the one exception to this. He's younger, definitely.
You know, they're all kind of arguing about who has
the rightful lineage to take the throne, but everybody knows
it's him. But he's kind of, as you say, he's
kind of got the Emperor Father behind him, you know,

(58:06):
telling him like, look, you you know, this is what
you need to do. And he's really torn because he's
torn between obeying his father and listening to this man
who's you know, been and noble been in charge. He's
also swept up in this, you know, this cult of Wallace,
Like he sees the passion that Wallace has about freeing Scotland,

(58:29):
and he wants nothing more than that. He doesn't want Tyler,
doesn't want land, he doesn't want gold. He just wants
his freedom and to see Scotland be free so that
he can live his life in peace, and he's like,
I want that. I want to I want the passion
that that man feels to be the passion in my heart.
I want to live like he lives. I want to

(58:50):
be this man. It's it's a real tough spot he's.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
In, right. There's that sequence in there where you know,
William kind of like pulls Robert to the side and
he says, look, if there's anybody that I'd be willing
to follow, it's you. So he's he's kind of telling
Robert like, hey, you know, you could really unify the nobles,
you could bring everything together. And Robert like just just

(59:13):
jumps on it. He's like he wants to be Wallace's friend.
He wants to he wants to be that young man
that goes out and fights. But his father, obviously is
somebody who wants him, wants to have a secure future
for a son. Like any father would.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
They see Wallace too, like all the noblemen and his father,
you know where Robert the Bruce is like, you know, look,
this man wants me to be king. He wants you know,
he wants to be part of that he you know,
he wants to fight for me. And they're like, no, no,
you don't understand. Wallace has too much influence over the people.
He will overthrow you and take the throat, you know that,

(59:49):
because that's the only way that they can see things. No,
man truly just wants freedom, he wants he wants other things.
He wants his own title, his own lands, his own fortune,
and the throne if possible. So they see him as.

Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
A threat, right, which he kind of proves that he's
not like that, but we'll get to that a little later. So, Joey,
you've been kind of quiet. What was your thoughts on
William Wallace and his relationship with Robert the Bruce boring?

Speaker 5 (01:00:14):
We have watched the most epic battle I would argue
probably in the top ten epic battles in cinema history.
And then we just followed up with exposition and half
the movie's over and we watched like the most iconic
battle sequence, and now we're just discussing like you know, oh,
you're a night now and you know this that and

(01:00:35):
the other, and like we're gonna have to suffer through
minutes more of this before we get to the payoff
on the quote gentle son.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
Right, Well, you know you say it's a boring sequence,
and you know, it's not like watching an entire movie
about trade negotiations in some place far far away. But
at least it paces.

Speaker 5 (01:00:54):
Me, at least the phantom medicine for timely, hasn't it?

Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
Well?

Speaker 5 (01:00:59):
Who knew that George Lucas was right about these fucking tariffs?

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
Well, as I was trying to say, is that, you know,
the pace of the movie when we have these low points,
it doesn't it doesn't feel like it pulls you out
of it. It's a nice quiet moment after something crazy
and exciting. You know, it's it's a good pace to it,
and it helps kind of move the story along, tells
us what's going on, gives us a little more history
into into the action. Because I don't know about you,

(01:01:24):
but as much as I love watching action movies, I
need those those little breaths of calmness in between all
the scenes so I can kind of understand and process
what's going on with the story. And of course, speaking
of the story, we now go from the Sterling Castle
and Edinburgh, in which William Wallace is tired of the
bickering with the nobles and he says, hey, I'm going

(01:01:45):
to go attack the English, and he and his friends
leave the council meeting and they head out to York
where they sack York. This punch to the nose of
the English because York is their northernmost it's borders Scotland,
it's where they It's basically where they have a foothold

(01:02:06):
to take on England. And because Wallace comes in sacks
it ruins everything, takes over the castle, basically cuts off
the head of the nobleman who in charge, who is
actually the King's nephew, and sends the head back to England.
That's about the time when our evil nemesis, Edward Longshanks

(01:02:31):
comes back and shows up, and we get that wonderful
payoff that I think i'll I'll lift the tim to describe.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
After he sacks York, which nobody ever thought was possible.
The nobleman didn't think he was gonna be able to
do it. They were like, oh, no, you're just now,
you're just being angry and stuff is He's like, no,
we gotta make sure that these guys don't want to
come back. And New York is the launching point for
England to enter into Scotland. So now once he's secured York,
you know, like he's now he's proved to the you know,

(01:02:59):
the nobleman, and everybody's like, look, we can do this. Yeah,
you know, your only thing stopping us is your reluctance
and unwillingness to commit yourself. If we put our mind
to it, we've taken York, we can come after the
rest of England. It's possibility. And even though there's still
kind of a denial about it, King Edward realizes this
is a good possibility. He is now sacked York. He

(01:03:22):
is sent back my family's head back to me. Basically,
he's like, it could be my head is the next
thing in the basket, Like this is the launching point
now for Scotland to invade England, you know, and he
knows it. So he's left his son's you know, Philip
to basically handle this, and he's done nothing. He's just
he's completely ineptent. And so when Edward finally comes to

(01:03:45):
confront his son as to you know, why have you
not handled this, he's waiting for him in a room
with his now new war war councilor Yeah, so Philip,
and he made.

Speaker 5 (01:03:56):
His boyfriend his advisor on the war.

Speaker 4 (01:03:59):
Yeah, yeah, and he.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Goes, well, I went and put Philip in charge of this,
and he's like, oh really, uh so tell me how
do you think we should handle this? And he kind
of grabs him and he just whips him out of window.
Yeah now, you know, which, which everybody's like, well that
seems overdramatic, especially since he had a sword in you
know with him. It's like, why did he just plow
the sword stab him or whatever, because he's already looked
at him like why is this guy speaking to me.

Speaker 5 (01:04:25):
Because it was so much cooler to throw his as
up the fuck.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
No, it's actually there's a real reason because back then,
dying by a sword was considered to be a very
honorable death, and he wants to make sure that Philip
does not have an honorable death. So he whips him
out the window. And then his son looks at him
with that test and he's kind of like looks at him, goes, well,
I solved that problem, is what he's thinking. He goes,
and maybe we're gonna be able to man you up

(01:04:50):
a little bit now through your hate.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
It's like kind of back to the upper thing, like yes,
you feel that hate like you'll build on that.

Speaker 5 (01:04:56):
You know, they had the proper reaction from the sun though,
like they he killed his lover, Yeah, he tried to
kill his father. He pulls that dagger out and try
to stab dad.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Yeah, and then's he's forced to He's like, well, how
am I going to handle this? Because I can't send
my son because as soon as the Scottish to see
my kid, this is kind of what I was reverard
to earlier. He's like, they're gonna take one look at him,
and they're gonna know they can take the entire country rights.
There's just nothing formidable about this kid at all. So
his plan is, I know what I'll do. I'll send
the princess. Yeah, because that's a twofold thing, you know,

(01:05:26):
I could send her, doesn't really matter, and if Wallace
or anybody kills her, it'll hopefully enrage the King of
France and he'll send more troops to help me quill
the Scottish. So it's like a twofold plan there, because.

Speaker 4 (01:05:39):
And it is interesting that he's got plans within plans
within plans, because not only is he sending Isabella, you know,
with that that idea that okay, well, if she gets killed.
You know, France will backed me up. But while he
was in France, he already had some stuff going on.
He had already sent ships to the port near Edinburgh,
which I'll get into that in a little bit. I

(01:06:01):
do want to back up a little bit in comment
on one thing. So when you were talking about Philip
getting thrown out the window, I couldn't help but think
of the guards down out at the bottom. They're like, crap,
somebody fill out of the window. They look down at it,
and then when they look back up the window they
see the kings standing. They're like, nope, everything's good here.
Carry on, Yeah, somebody had an accident.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
What I see you thrown out some trash. Will take
care of that for you, sir.

Speaker 4 (01:06:22):
Yeah. Yeah. So Isabella meets with Wallace, and I thought
it was interesting, or at least very poetic in the
fact that the consort or the woman in waiting is
telling Isabella about William Wallace and she tells her his
story of Miran and how all this escalated from the
fact that the English had killed his wife. And I

(01:06:43):
think that kind of helps enamor Isabella to William Wallace
right off the bat when she goes to meet him,
she realizes that he's a guy who's true to his word,
he's honorable, He's somebody that any princess would probably dream about,
you know, your classic Prince Charming wrapped up in a
sky killed.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
And he likes women exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:07:03):
Interesting. They kind of developed this like almost friendship when
he goes to meet her and it's him, and I
want to say, it was Hamish that was in the
in the tent with them, and that one gentleman who
I think was her personal guard starts talking to her
in Latin, and William Wallace like calls him out and
replies back to him in Latin and then replies back

(01:07:25):
to him in French. And then that's when Isabella is like, okay,
really the tent? And I just I thought that this
was a very telling about the character, the true characters
of each of these characters. So what did you guys
think of William talking to Isabella?

Speaker 5 (01:07:40):
I zoned out and I didn't care.

Speaker 4 (01:07:42):
Sorry, what was your thoughts on Isabella? Oh?

Speaker 5 (01:07:47):
You thought out and I just did not care about
this whole scene.

Speaker 4 (01:07:50):
All right, So anything with intrigue or political machinations, Joey
doesn't care about basically, so you're telling me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Yes, yeah, it doesn't have action and he's out.

Speaker 5 (01:08:00):
Yeah, waiting, I'm waiting for other people to die.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Okay, Yeah, I mean I liked it. It felt a
little Robin hoodish to me. You know, this has got
some you know, definitely made merry and overtones to it.
But it was interesting. You know, she's got to talk
to the savage. She doesn't expect, but she's already enamored
with the story and the legend of him and the
reason that he fights this for his love. And then
I like when he enters the tent, she's got her

(01:08:25):
little you know, counsel there. William Walls responds in kind,
but doesn't just sneak back in French. He's like, speaks
in French basically says, you know what, you're right, I
am a savage. But it's you know, it's almost like
a double slap, like it's like a backhand and then
a ford hand on the way back. You know, it's like,
let me speak in French, smack and then let me
tell you yes, I'm still a savage. Smack back, and
the guy's like shit, and then he's like, let me

(01:08:46):
let me throw down one more time. He cranks back
that hand one more good time. You know, he does
this his best imitation of Will Smith, and it just
cracks across space more time by speaking in even a
third language, and that guy's like, shit, like, there's nothing
I'm gonna be able to do here because this guy's
gonna know everything I say. So that's when she's like,
look everybody out. And then she, you know, she's like,

(01:09:06):
let me love you. This is what's going on, you know,
and this this is where we're at. It's she's kind
of got no skin in the game technically. I mean, yeah,
she's married to the prince, but she detests the king already.
I mean that's becoming more and more evident. And she
definitely does not like her husband, you know, she is
she has definitely been let down by that whole situation, so,

(01:09:27):
you know, and she just she wants true love so desperately,
and here's a man who fights for the love that
he's lost. I mean, there's nothing more romantic than that.
So are you quoted a Brian Adams song? Kind of yeah,
I think I am a little bit. You know, it's
definitely easy for the two of them to kind of
fall in together. Even though it's just a brief encounter

(01:09:49):
the first time they've met, it's it's gonna definitely go
from there without a doubt.

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
Yeah, kind of make a bit of a friendship to
the point where she actually warns him about some future
events as a as they take place, which we we
find out about when she returns back to England and
she tells, you know, long Shanks that, hey, you know,
I met with Wallace. He didn't take your offer. A
long Shanks' is like, wells, where's the money? What happened
to it? And she's she kind of like slaps him

(01:10:14):
in the face and says, oh, well, I left it
with you know, the orphanages and the children and the
victims of the war fund. He's like, oh, well, you
know that's what happens when you send a woman.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
Yeah, that definitely fies the hate right there.

Speaker 4 (01:10:26):
Yeah, that's when we find out long Shanks plan CD
E and F where he had already dispatched soldiers up
the English Channel and across to the Northern Sea where
they're going to basically route out the Scottish and he
decides to go and fight William Wallace himself and they

(01:10:47):
head off to the Battle of Falkirk. Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh,
Robert the Bruce the Senior is making deals with the
nobles as well as with long Shanks.

Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
Does Robert the Bruce the Senior have leprosy? I don't
know that they ever come out and like literally say
what the fuck is wrong with him?

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
I'm pretty sure he does. That's always my take. How
the hell does his son not catch it? Then maybe
he as long as he doesn't touch him.

Speaker 4 (01:11:10):
Yeah, he keeps his distance from him on his death bed.
He's touching him right now.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
He touches his clothes though he doesn't touch him.

Speaker 5 (01:11:17):
That always bothered me.

Speaker 4 (01:11:18):
But the Senior basically strikes a deal so that Robert,
Robert the Bruce, secures.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
Ascendency to the throne pretty much.

Speaker 4 (01:11:27):
Yeah, i'd say his failty to the to the King
of England. And we see that Robert also promises William
Wallace that he'll show up on it for his side
at the Battle of Folker. Then the battle happens, and
this is another great scene where you think, Okay, Wallace
has got one up on them. I mean he shows up.

(01:11:47):
There's the two noblemen. They go in for their charge,
the two noblemen till to the sides with their armies.
As they're running up Longshank sees that, okay, well they
don't have archers. Their archers are too far away, so
let's go ahead and we'll send in the Calorie and
the Irish. And I thought that was the coolest scene
ever where you have these two large bodies of soldiers

(01:12:07):
running towards each other and they just stop like five
feet away from each other and they greet each other.
Because Steven got hold of his clan and it's his island,
and the Irish joined the Scottish to fight the English.

Speaker 5 (01:12:21):
I gotta say it wasn't as exciting as our first
Blue Blue Faced Paint battle. It's not as rewatchable, and
the betrayal is more or less like I just didn't care.
It just seemed like more overacting and drawing things out.
So this is a weak scene for me.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
See, I can't agree with you. I think this is
this is a great scene because this is this is
just like another turning point in the story where we
learned that Wallace has to deal with the political machinations
of the nobles as well as trying to unify Scotland
under what he thought would be Robert the Bruce's banner.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
Yeah, it's it's definitely a pivotal moment in the story.
I mean, we've got the momentum, we got the army here,
we're on English soil, so now we can bring the
hurt to them. And he's got good plans, you know,
he spreads that oil out and things like that. They've
made a deal with the Irish. I mean, you're that
scene is just it's gold Man. I mean, just like
you said, the scene of both of them running towards

(01:13:18):
each other because you know what's long Shanks like, you know,
should I have the archers fired? Nah, arrows cost money.
Just send the Irish and they don't cost nothing, and
then send our troops in behind them. So they all
come charge each other and then they all stop and
greet each other and turn around. He's like, fucking Irish
shit again, that's the usual most of these films, fucking Irish.
And then whilst like, hey check this out, and he

(01:13:41):
gives the flag thing and they have archers that the
long Shanks didn't know is there? Fires off those flaming arrows,
sets the field a blaze, setting the English on fire
and they charge the Irish and the Scottish charge. They
have the upper hand. They are starting to slaughter the English,
and he waves off to the nobles like, okay, it's
your turn. If the nobles had just gone in, they
probably could have won this thing. But the nobles have

(01:14:03):
made their dirty deal and they're like nope, and they
just kind of look at him and they turn around and
they leave, and Longshanks is like, you know, sending the archers,
and guy's like, yeah, but you hit there many. He's like, yeah,
but we'll hit the Scottish too, So who cares? Like
that's how evil this man is. He's like, yeah, I
don't even care, you know, as long as we win
this thing and we wipe out all these guys, and
so you know, they all start flying. People are just

(01:14:23):
dying left. And right after he does that, he's like
sending the rest of our reserves and they're just going
to go in and and mop up the Scottish. And
you know, even at this point, we've seen William Wallace
take an arrow, but you know he's down, he's heard,
he's confused, and he's like, look, if I'm going to
go out, I'm going to take the king with me.
He goes, goes for him hard. He's going to ride in,
He's going to try to take these guys out and

(01:14:43):
kill the king. And so who do they send to
defend the king? But they sent you know, Robert the Bruce.
You know they they end up charging each other, knocking
each other off their horses and stuff and h and
then Wallace is just basically you know, kids up to
fight him and and pulls the helmet off and realizes
it is Robert the Bruce who's fighting him, and the

(01:15:05):
betrayal is one hundred percent done at this man that
he had such faith in to unite the people has
now betrayed him. And he's you could see that this
is again where where mel Gibson as an actor just
pays off a one hundred fold. That look in his eyes
sells the whole thing. He doesn't even need to say anything.
You could just see the look of pain and he

(01:15:25):
just lies down and gives up.

Speaker 4 (01:15:27):
I really did like the way that mel Gibson conveyed
his feelings of betrayal from Robert the Bruce, and you
can kind of see it reciprocated when Robert de Bruce
realizes that, oh, hey, you know, I really I really
screwed something up. You know, I could have a friend
in William Wallace and here I have betrayed him. You
can kind of see that all He realizes that he
needs to start changing, he needs it has come to

(01:15:49):
Jesus moment, honestly, and you know he chucked William Wallace
up to the Irishman. And yeah, that was a phenomenal
scene between those those two actors and what happened within that,
the emotion happened in that scene. It might be a
little too overly dramatic for Joey, but you know what,
it's it's human nature.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
Well, and I like to too, because you could see
Robert Bruce knows he's fucked up. Yeah, he really does.
He's like, I've gone against everything that I wanted to
stand for. I became everything that I that I hate,
and doing so, I may have doomed Scotland along the way.

Speaker 4 (01:16:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
At this point, Wallace's army is decimated, so now he's
got nothing left but revenge. So what's he do? He
starts going after the noble and then that betrayed him. Yeah,
and you know, first they kind of rolle him off.
He's like, well, this is coulda be the end of
Wallace And then they realize, oh shit, this is goulda
be the end of us, because he's not going to
rest until we're all dead. And that's emphasized after kills
the first one right in his bedchamber with that fucking

(01:16:46):
ball on a chain, dude, and you're just like, yep,
just like earlier, that's right. Fuck, you had this coming,
you know, So yeah, there's no remorse from that happens.
You're like, that's what you have come And and then
they're sitting around that table talking about with Robert, the
Bruce is like, well, be any one of us next,
and he's like He's like, well, maybe it's gonna be you,
and he's like whatever. And then that next body comes
flying through the roof down onto the table and stuff,

(01:17:07):
and they're like, oh shit, it may be me. Like
they know this is serious. So it takes a turn
for the ugly. And even though people are still trying
to rally around Wallace, he's kind of broken at this
point and he's trying to regroup. Plus he's wounded, you know,
so is he gonna be able to a mass an
army big enough at this point hard to say if
he can do it, especially if he doesn't get the
nobles behind him. He knows he can't win because the

(01:17:28):
nobles have got what little cavalry they have, and they
still have, you know, hold the allegiance of men in
their realms, regardless of whether the men want to be
with Wallace or not. You know, they kind of have
to walk that line where they can't just leave the
noble because they do. They leave their lands, titles and
everything else just like the nobles do. So it puts
them in the rock in a heart place, but definitely

(01:17:49):
has them quaking in their boots now because they realize
if he can't go after the king and after England,
well he's going to go after the next best thing,
and that's the people who betrayed it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:57):
Yeah, and again, this is a this is a movie
about revenge, a tale of revenge. It's it's John Wick
before John Wick. And I think my last comment is,
so after this revenge, after he's he's taken out Mornee
and Lachland, the two that betrayed him. On the battlefield
with Robert de Bruce, there's this sequence that seemed very

(01:18:20):
much like out of the movie The Highlander, in which
William Wallace mel Gibson is like running up this mountain
and I'm like, this feels like I should be watching it.
In The highlanderuse it kind of has that you know,
helicopter panned out, like what are we trying to do here?
And I think it's just it's it's mel Gibson's directorial
way of showing you that William is off licking his wounds,

(01:18:43):
He's trying to find a sense of self again.

Speaker 5 (01:18:46):
Again. I enjoy the violence, and I load the Melo drama.
It's just anybody who says that I watch Braveheart all
the time, I don't believe they're watching the whole movie.
I think they're watching the battle sequences or other scenes
of islands that might be briefer. I don't think that
they're rewatching all of the talking heads, gotcha.

Speaker 4 (01:19:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:07):
It's funny, though, Matt, that you bring up the Highlander thing,
because you know, that's what I think of when I
see that scene too. And oddly enough, they actually considered
Christopher Lambert to play William.

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
That would be rather neat.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
Yeah, and I'm not going to even take that a
step further because then later on Sophie Princess Isabella dates
Christopher Lamber. So there's some kind of weird connection there,
you know, it's like a Kevin Bacon thing going on there.

Speaker 4 (01:19:30):
So seven degrees from Lambert.

Speaker 5 (01:19:32):
Yeah, Christopher Lambert is actually a year younger than Mel Gibson.
And yeah, he's the original French guy to play a
Scott a scotsman. I don't know how to describe his
eyebrows and his overall look today other than unnatural. First
glance of Christopher Lambert, you might be thinking that is
that Ai, No, that's Christopher Lambert.

Speaker 4 (01:19:53):
So I think one more thing that we probably want
to discuss. There's now an assassination attempt on William Waller
through the promise of meeting Isabella, and I thought it
was rather cool. It's long Shanks trying to more or
less do what he did in the beginning of the movie.
We're brought out to William Wallace that Isabella wants to
meet him at this this particular hut and it's full

(01:20:15):
of all of these English canniggots, and Wallace and Haymus
show up and you kind of get the sense that, okay,
they're probably going to be hanging from the raptors if
they if they walk into this building. They knew that
the assassination exemple was going to happen, and they box
the English into the into the hut enemy set it
on fire, and I thought that was very, very revengeful

(01:20:35):
for what happened at the very beginning of the movie.

Speaker 5 (01:20:38):
It was hardcore. That is that is a brutal scene.
We don't get to watch them burn per se. That
is a nasty thing to do. It's again we love
the violence in the film. The load of the melodrama,
I think, really just I mean, it's a great scene.
They know it's no, it's trap and they end up

(01:20:58):
trapping the trappy and the assassins that are waiting for them.
But I think my favorite part about that is when
Princess Isabella sends her handmade to Warren William Wallace. You know,
Hammish was like, I see I see the Princess Senator
and made the doc to He's like, yeah, he goes,
he mad quite an impression, goes apparently I didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
I don't think you're in the tenth that long.

Speaker 6 (01:21:18):
That's probably my favorite part about the whole thing. I
didn't think you're in the tent long enough. I did
enjoy that little, you know, tongue in cheek bit right there.
But uh yeah, it's a good scene though, I mean, regardless,
but that's my favorite part of it right there.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
It's just the whole comment by him, the observation.

Speaker 4 (01:21:33):
Yeah. And of course, you know, after they they foil
the trap, Wallace does wind up meeting with Isabella and
that's where we get a nice love sequence. You know,
they finally get to connect on a biblical sense.

Speaker 5 (01:21:48):
Yeah, once again the tour of this film, the director
and the star gets to hook up with the younger.

Speaker 4 (01:21:56):
Actress, right but you know it does get to pay
a revenge on the king as well because of a payoff.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
With Terron and Spades.

Speaker 4 (01:22:07):
Yes. So then after all this happens, Robert the Bruce
gets a message to William Wallace saying, hey, I you know,
I'm sorry man, I want to I want to be
on your side. Come and meet with me. Let's let's,
you know, unify all of England. And then that's when
the final, the final hand of Robert the Bruce the

(01:22:27):
Senior is exposed and poor William Wallace is captured at
the Castle of Edinburgh and sent to Longshanks in England.
We have the quote trial of William Wallace and then
the unfortunate what's the word I'm looking for.

Speaker 5 (01:22:45):
Torture?

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
YEA torture execution lensing, I think is what they call it.

Speaker 4 (01:22:49):
Yes, And that's when you know Wallace gets strung up
by some ropes and he's quartered tim Since this is
this is truly one of your favorite movies. You want
to you want to give our audiences what William Wallace
says is his last words.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
So they they try hanging them, he won't repent. They
try drawing, courting them, they won't repent. And then he
puts them on that cross and and basically what they're
doing is they're gutting off his dick and his testicles
and then jamming it back into his body in the
most painful way possible. I mean, it's horrific.

Speaker 5 (01:23:27):
I thought they were just disemboweling him.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
They they do disambowl him too. After that, that's they
they basically cut off that. Yeah, the coffin is his
testicles in this penis. Then they disembowl him and jam
it back in them. And it's a it's a horribly
bad thing. And I guess originally they filmed it in
very graphic detail.

Speaker 5 (01:23:47):
That's not how you prepare a turkey.

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
All right, well it is, I guess back in England,
and that's I guess it was. Really they they did
it in graphic detail, and the audience was like, oh no,
that was just too much, so they cut it down
to where you can't see it. But that's why you finally,
even the crowd it's like, look, mercy, look, you gotta
give this guy mercy. You have to, you know. And
and meanwhile, the way this is going on, you know,

(01:24:10):
just before it happens, you got Princess Isabella comes in
to long Shanks's room and she's like, look, I'm begging
you give this guy, you know, give him mercy, give
him a quick death or whatever. And he won't do
She's like, even in death, you you just won't do it.
And he's kind of like God, and the son's acting
a little cocky now because he knows he's about to
be king and you know this William Wallace has been captured.

(01:24:31):
And so that's when Isabella gets the greatest revenge where
she comes up to long Shanks and she's like, just
so you know you're gonna die soon, and when you do,
I'm gonna kill your son because he won't make it
very long in the thrown and I guarantee this, and
I have the I have a baby, you know, basically

(01:24:52):
in the oven, and it's not his, it's losses and
you can just see, like you know, because it can't
talk or anything. So yeah, I mean he literally I
almost just literally kills him right there. He just you know,
in the end, Scotland will be free because the wallace
is going to sit on the throat, you know, when
it's all said, dude, so it's it's it's a it's

(01:25:12):
a brilliant you don't see it coming kind of last minute,
you know, dig at at you know, long shanks because
when like one last f you to him. But then
we go back down, you got all the people they're like, look,
give this guy mercy. This is horrific that nobody's ever
gone this long. And then finally, you know, the it's
not really the priest, it's a judge up to here.
He's like, oh look I think you know, I think

(01:25:32):
he has something to say, and it takes him a
long time to muster that, you know, that strength to
do it. And he doesn't say mercy. He just screams freedom,
you know, And I mean it's just and that's final.
Like the guy's like, I can't let it go any further.
And then he beheads so and then they take his head.
They put on London Bridge, they caught off his arms, legs,
They put him at the four Corners of England as

(01:25:54):
a warning to anybody who would choose to rebel against
the king in the future. And as they said, it
did not have the desire to fat though, it did
the absolute opposite. So it's a brutal, horrific scene to watch.
I can't imagine any human being enduring it.

Speaker 5 (01:26:10):
But they don't show it, really they don't.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
And you know, but you don't need to. The looks
on mel Gibson's face is enough to understand that what's
going on is horrible. I mean, he sells it. He
sells it all the way through. I don't even need
to see what's going on to understand none of it's
any good.

Speaker 4 (01:26:26):
Well, I think what also helps sell it is you
occasionally get shots of Hamish and Steven and the reactions
on their faces, you know, because Steven even says, you know,
say it, say it, say mercy. You know he knows that,
you know, he's going through some serious pain. You can
see it. So it's it's definitely conveyed there too.

Speaker 2 (01:26:44):
And they're helpless. There's no way they can save their friend,
not a chance to know. There's no Robin Hood ending.

Speaker 4 (01:26:49):
In this one. William also gets a vision of his
wife for the second time in his life, when she's
like walking behind Hamish and Steven, and then that's kind
of where we see him just finally give up the
ghost and he dies and we get to see that
when they got married he had a he got a
handkerchief from her or a napkin, not a napkin pretty much. Yeah,

(01:27:15):
and he's he been keeping it with him, carrying it
with him. And then that's where it's then passed off
to Robert the Bruce and where we learned in the
last you know, five minutes of the movie that it's
it's Robert the Bruce who winds up becoming Scotland's king
and he faces the English at Bannock Bird and there's

(01:27:35):
Steven and Hamishes with him. The English think he's gonna
come down and quote kiss their asses. Turns out that
Robert decides that's it, we're going to attack, We're going
for our freedom, and he leads the Scots to to
a final victory over England. What did you guys think
of that last sequence of what I would consider Robert

(01:27:56):
the Bruce's attempt at redemption.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
I think it's crap. I'm gonna be honest. This this
is the part of the movie where it falls apart
from me. Thank god, it's in the last five minutes,
you know, But who's you know.

Speaker 5 (01:28:08):
I'm in complete agreement with Tim the words right out
of my mouth. It's not who you want to see
standing at the end of this movie. That was heavily fictional.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
Anyhow, Yeah, here you go, rare moment. Joy and I
both agree. But there you got it. We have consensus.
It's it's not Scottish, it's clap and he's betrayed William
Wallace on more than one occasion. He has let the
Scottish people down, and now he's like, you've been bled
for Wallace, now bleed for me. Let's free Scotland. I'd
be like, fuck you. You know, the only thing that's

(01:28:38):
gonna bleed on this background is you. You bastard. When
this is all said done, I wish somebody else would
have taken up the helm, even the crazy irishman. Let
the Irish free the Scottish. I think that has been
a better ending, honestly, But yeah, I just I can't
get behind that guy anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:28:53):
There is one scene that I really liked, and that's
Hamish at the end when he has the has wall
else's you know, Scottish Claymore and he picks it up
and he throws it, and then we get that kind
of iconic looking scene where the sword comes crashing into
the ground and it's standing perfectly straight up like a cross. Visually,
that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:29:14):
It is Well the sword throw was ad lift. They weren't.
It wasn't even the script. That guy just did it
on his own, gotcha, it's my understanding anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:29:20):
Well, if it was ad lib, I think it paid
off because it was, like I said, it was visually awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
How many times do you think you had to throw
that big ass sword before it landed?

Speaker 5 (01:29:28):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
I got one of them things. I got a giant
ass Claymore sword, and they're heavier than hell and awkward.
I would be hard pressed to throw that get it
to land. I mean, I'm telling you that's a big sword.

Speaker 4 (01:29:39):
Well, that pretty much wraps up three hour film. Reviewed done.
I'm gonna ask any final thoughts on Mel Gibson's performance,
any of the actors, any of the storyline that you
guys want to highlight before we dive into our wonderful
death clock.

Speaker 5 (01:29:54):
The French actress is really hot and I'm probably gonna
be googling that tonight before I go night night.

Speaker 2 (01:29:59):
All right, well, all right, on the flip side of that,
I still think this is a great movie. I hate
to tell you, Joey, but when I do watch this,
I'm watching it through and through every time up until
that lasts like four minutes, and then I stopped when
you see Freedom. I just turned it off like it
was the greatest movie ever. So this movie, to me
is it's up there with you know, I'm gonna put
it up there with Star Wars. I mean, it's you know,

(01:30:21):
this is one of my top ten favorite movies of
all time.

Speaker 4 (01:30:24):
I don't think I could add any more to what
Tim had just said about everything. So I think I
know where you're at, Tim, But Joey, where are you
at it? With the death clock. Is this worth taking
two hours and eight minutes off your death clock?

Speaker 5 (01:30:36):
No, it is worth taking one hour off your death
clock and just watching all the scenes of violence only one.

Speaker 4 (01:30:43):
All right, well, Tim, do you would you like to
reveal the guests that I have?

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
Yeah, there's no question, Matthew, no question. I love this movie.
It's definitely worth the three hours. If they ever come
out with the four hour version, I highly recommend that
as well. Only get better from here, you know. I mean,
it's just it's a good film. It's it's got a
great cast, great acting. Again, what more can you want?
I mean, yeah, again, this are a couple of clumsy parts.

(01:31:10):
It's not absolutely perfect, but it's damn near perfect.

Speaker 4 (01:31:13):
It's definitely two out of three saying yes because I
agree with you. I think it is definitely worth taking
two hours of eight minutes off your death clock. This
is March, the thirtieth anniversary of the film. I really
hope that Paramount Pictures and Mel Gibson come out with
like a restored edition, a four hour cut, whatever you
want to call it. Let's see something for the thirtieth anniversary.

(01:31:35):
Hey listener, write to Paramount say hey, Braveheart is a
phenomenal film. Let's let's get something out there for it.
So yeah, that's pretty much it, guys. As far as
the death Clock, I do want to point out that
we are now into feedback. Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen.
If you have any mail, comment, suggestions, anything about our show,

(01:31:56):
feel free to write in at Manreview Podcast at gmail
dot com or leave us a comments or a suggestion
over on YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, wherever. And you know what, guys,
we do have some feedback, in particular on our April
Fools episode, the Back to the Future Part four episode

(01:32:17):
we actually fooled some people guys, believe it or not.
Nice at trek Mate over on YouTube said that they
loved the what if episode so much fun. Well done, guys,
so way to go we got we got someone given
a positive review on that A Robert Bauer thirty six
oh seven over on YouTube says that you first wanted

(01:32:39):
to know what we're talking about, and of course I
replied to him that, hey, take a look at the
date when we dropped the episode. Huge hint and of
course totally embarrassed. I get it. It's an April Fool's joke. Great, haha,
wish you wish there was a back to the Future
for as good as the original within original cast. So yeah,
definitely got somebody fooled by our April Fool's joke. Our

(01:33:00):
good friend Courtney also says thank you so much for
having her on the show, and she says that we
did a really great job with the with our Vertigo episode.

Speaker 2 (01:33:10):
Well, I'm glad people enjoyed the episode.

Speaker 5 (01:33:12):
And remember, any interaction bo boosts us in the algorithm.
So tell us to fuck off, tell us it's terrible,
tell us guess my weight, whatever you'd like to put,
thumbs down, thumbs up, Any interaction is positive interaction in
my eyes.

Speaker 2 (01:33:29):
Bring it on, or just tell Joey that he's wrong.
And Brave Heart's a great movie and you enjoy watching
it over and over again. Yes, it'll infuriate him and
bring us great joy.

Speaker 4 (01:33:37):
All right, guys, Well that brings us to what are
you watching? Over to you first tim other than Brave Heart?
What are you watching?

Speaker 2 (01:33:44):
Two things? So I finished season three of the Blacklist,
getting ready to jump into season four, very excited about that,
and then talk to Joey about this a little bit
last week. But you get to bring it up in one
of the programs, So I'll bring it up now because
I think you'll find some interest in it too. I
watched a zombie film Matthew what with William Shatner in it.
I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, And this movie has got

(01:34:06):
Joey's name written all over it. It's called Range fifteen.
It's a horrible, horrible zombie film. But it's so, so, so,
so so bad. It is fantastic. And it's a bunch
of ex military guys who now I think work at
like basically gun stores. And they got tired of watching

(01:34:29):
the way the military was portrayed in zombie films and
things like that. So they started like their own Kickstarter
to earn money to make a movie, and they got
crazy amount of cash. My time it was done, I
think Joey looked up, it was like over a million dollars.
And so they got so much money that they wrote
this horrible zombie movie and then they just paid like
big stars to just show up on it. So it
not only has William Shatner in it, it has Danny Trejo,

(01:34:52):
It has Sean Hasten in it. Rod Jeremy since canceled
even Keith David's in it.

Speaker 4 (01:35:00):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it is hilarious, but I mean
it's stupid, it's horrible, it's ridiculous. I mean there's even
scenes where they film themselves in a helicopter. You can
clearly see that it's not really in the air and
they're just sitting in this thing and they're all kind
of bouncing up and down as they turn to talk
to each other. Stuff. It's just it's it's like the
ultimate amateur movie made with real money. I would I

(01:35:24):
recommend anybody go out and watch this thing again. It's
it's never gonna win even come. It's not gonna be
uttered in the bathrooms of the Academy Awards ever. But man,
it was just a lot of fun to watch. And
it's just completely ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (01:35:40):
So where can someone find that movie.

Speaker 2 (01:35:42):
It is on Amazon Prime, so almost everybody in the
planet has Amazon Prime. So yeah, go fire that up,
go look for It's called Range fifteen. It was made
twenty sixteen. It's an hour and thirty two minutes of
just sheer entertainment and fun.

Speaker 4 (01:35:57):
Nice, and it's old Shatner. I was I was kind
of hoping that you're inna bring up something from like
the nineteen sixties or the nineteen, you know, fifties, But no,
you're going in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
Nice, But it's old Shatner in a zombie movie of
all things.

Speaker 4 (01:36:10):
I don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:36:11):
Yeah, you never thought you're gonna see those two together,
I'm sure, but I found it.

Speaker 4 (01:36:14):
I'm gonna have to check that out.

Speaker 5 (01:36:16):
It's also available the Roku channel, Hoopla and to B
and Fandego at home and Plue TV all right, and
plex and everywhere called fowsome everywhere.

Speaker 4 (01:36:30):
Except for Disney Plus and Netflix. Huh yeah, correct, All right, Joey,
how about you? You got any any Shatner for us too?

Speaker 5 (01:36:37):
No, no, I am. I am holding out on a
few Shatner classics. One I can't think of the name
of the right now. The other one's Kingdom of the
Spiders has gotten a recent Blu ray release, but they
let it drop that it's from a four K scan,
but they have not done the four K release yet,
so I'm gonna hold off on my Shatner until the

(01:36:58):
four K Kingdom of the Fighters dropped. However, I did
finish off season three of White Lotus Walton Goggins steals
the show. He was amazing. The actress who plays Chelsea,
his large tooth British girlfriend, is also I think she's
her star is really gonna blow up. And it was
a heart wrencher. And you know, thankfully Righteous Gemstones new

(01:37:23):
episodes air the same night, so I'm able to be
comforted by watching Uncle Baby Billy as he's called, also
played by Walton Goggins on The Righteous Gemstones, which is
in its final season. Cool.

Speaker 4 (01:37:38):
So, yeah, the only thing that I've been watching, and
it's actually spurred from a recent death in Hollywood, and
of course that's, you know, the passing of Val Kilmer.
And my wife and I were talking, like, you know what,
we should do a Val Kilmer marathon. So I've been
I've been calling up a bunch of Val Kilmer movies

(01:37:59):
and watching them in particular. I just recently watched Willow
again and I forgot just how much I've enjoyed I
enjoyed Willow. I watched it with kids, and yeah, it's
it's a heartwarming classic that you just had to watch
once every couple of years.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
Matt, you are my son, my moon, my stars. Without you,
I lik in darkness.

Speaker 4 (01:38:21):
It went away. It went away. Yes, and I forgot
how big Warwick Davis's hands are. I mean, it's like.

Speaker 5 (01:38:30):
I saw them in real life.

Speaker 4 (01:38:31):
I did too. I shook those hands, and you know,
I'm like.

Speaker 5 (01:38:35):
He's not your average little person. He's got huge hands,
huge hand.

Speaker 4 (01:38:40):
It's like it's like regular hands, you know, normal adult
size hands, like you if I'm going to hand you
a flower as a little kid. That's the size of
my hand. Yeah, I shook it, regular size heads.

Speaker 5 (01:38:51):
It was weird.

Speaker 4 (01:38:51):
But the rest of his body is so short. It
just it just blows my mind that when you see
him running through going Kanya Kaya, you know, his arms
are like it's hand or like half of his freaking
acting ability.

Speaker 5 (01:39:03):
It's just yeah, go look compare his hands to the
other little people on side. He's got the big hands exactly. Yeah,
they don't. They got little sausage fingers.

Speaker 4 (01:39:13):
So well, this has been hands podcast. Thank you for listening,
and I will turn over to Tim to take us home.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
Thanks for listening to the Middle Aged Movies Podcast. We
hope you've enjoyed our review of Brave Heart and that
you didn't feel like you got dressed up for nothing.
And if you didn't feel like you got dressed up
for nothing, then leave us a comment, subscribe, you know,
hit that like button, give us someatulation, or just tell

(01:39:41):
us how much we suck. I don't care what it is,
but do something.

Speaker 4 (01:39:45):
Follow us on Facebook, x Blue Sky and Instagram. Have
a comments or suggestion. Email the show We were at
to Man Review podcast at gmail dot com.

Speaker 5 (01:39:55):
You know, you know, I gotta say, I want to
take a brave heart and then just re edit certain
scenes where you know they're all dressed like hoboes and
burl up sacks and then just make it called like,
you know, like Attack of the Homeless People. I think
that would be a good version of this movie.

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Episode 57 - Braveheart (aka Kilt Freedom Force)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 57 - Braveheart (aka Kilt Freedom Force)