It's the ad hominem fallacy to decry a piece of work on account of one's distastefulness for its maker. For example, it may be fair, but it's not logical to dismiss all films by Mel Gibson on account of his bigotry, sexism and hypocrisy. Fortunately, in the case of Braveheart (ca 1995), there's no cause to abandon logic. Gibson aside, the movie--a romantic epic of a medieval Scot rebel directed by and starring Gibson--itself stinks.

I first heard of Braveheart from my brother. He'd called to spur me to view what he described (in not so many words) as a badass display of machismo. So, I loped down the hill from UCSD to the La Jolla Village cinema (back when they stooped to show mainstream fare), bought a ticket and Jujubes, slumped in a seat, watched it, and yes: it was bloody good fun. I was so fond of it, I purchased the soundtrack CD replete with ennobling motifs and maudlin string orchestra. But I was young and dumb then. In hindsight, it was the erstwhile film critic of the San Diego Reader, Duncan Shepherd, who hit the nail on the head with this contemporaneous and pithy review: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/movies/braveheart/

A couple of years later, I shipped off from UC San Diego to Australia to sort-of study at the University of Sydney, I'm not sure why. Perhaps I was drawn to Sydney Uni's handsome Neo-Gothic structures, a welcome change from UCSD's architectural style of Neo-Whatever-Dude.* Indeed, except for the kangaroos sculpted atop the spires, its towers are quite reminiscent of Cambridge and Oxford.** I mention the Australian chapter, because like me, Mel Gibson was an American expatriate in Oz. Articles tell that his zealot father had emigrated from the States to spare his sons the draft. This did not deter the actor from playing a Vietnam war hero in We Were Soldiers (scripted by the writer of Braveheart).

Among the Aussie student body was a fairly pervasive anti-American sentiment (or maybe they just didn't like me--Ha!), which colored opinion on important matters like Mel Gibson. One classmate and career-student painted him "a big phony," on account of losing his Aussie accent to speak like a Yank. I told her she couldn't blame him, because "you do have pretty silly accents."

Ultimately, coincidentally with increasingly-bad Gibsonian press, having become more jaded, and I daresay wise to instance of filmic cliché, I came to adopt Mr. Shepherd's opinion. The movie was excessively gory (perhaps having become a father effected greater sensitivity to violence), hamfisted, and pandering. There's nothing wrong with the heroic tale of nobility and honor. Yet, it needn't be anachronistic, masochistic, simplistic. Take the flick Rob Roy incidentally released the same year as Braveheart, it told another story of an heroic Scot. [The titular character is famous for inspiring the scotch and vermouth cocktail and killing Englishmen.] Rob Roy, the movie heeds time and place, and physics: 18th-century-teeth were yellow, swinging a sword is hard work, and humans weren't born on Krypton. Its dialogue is rich, its action truly thrilling for being more sparse, surprising and well-earned.

Now is the twilight of Gibson's career. Gone is the lush 80s mullet, the wrinkle-free skin, the A-list status. And that's okay. He had has time in the limelight: Braveheart won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1995. Rob Roy won nothing, as far as I recall. Which goes to show you that the Academy Awards are a bunch of self-congratulatory hooey.

Anyway, this was apropos of nothing. I've just been meaning to critique Mel Gib-- I mean Braveheart, for a while now.

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*The deliberate non-uniformity of architectural style at UCSD is an interesting concept, perhaps suggestive of cultural diversity and tolerance otherwise lacking there. Yet, in execution, many of its buildings are perhaps suggestive of prison barracks.

**This is slightly funnier than it sounds, if only because they really do have kangaroos on the buildings. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, except that kangaroos are innately silly. Though, they're fairly edible and low in fat.