Product Description

Director/star Mel Gibson took home Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards for this historical epic about 13th-century Scottish hero William Wallace, a farmer forced into fighting the forces of England's King Edward I after they kill his father and new wife. Highlighted by amazing battle scenes, the passionate saga also stars Patrick McGoohan, Sophie Marceau, and Catherine McCormick. 177 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital Surround, French Dolby Digital Surround; Subtitles: English; audio commentary by Gibson; "making of" documentary; theatrical trailers. NOTE: This Title Is Out Of Print; Limit One Per Customer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2132 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Published on: 2000-08-01
• Released on: 2000-08-29
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Running time: 177 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
A stupendous historical saga, Braveheart won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for star Mel Gibson. He plays William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish commoner who unites the various clans against a cruel English King, Edward the Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan). The scenes of hand-to-hand combat are brutally violent, but they never glorify the bloodshed. There is such enormous scope to this story that it works on a smaller, more personal scale as well, essaying love and loss, patriotism and passion. Extremely moving, it reveals Gibson as a multitalented performer and remarkable director with an eye for detail and an understanding of human emotion. (His first directorial effort was 1993's Man Without a Face.) The film is nearly three hours long and includes several plot tangents, yet is never dull. This movie resonates long after you have seen it, both for its visual beauty and for its powerful story. --Rochelle O'Gorman

DVD features
In his engaging audio commentary, Mel Gibson is deeply appreciative of his cast and collaborators (especially Oscar-winning cinematographer John Toll) and, of course, quite amusing when he wants to be. Gibson notes, "I fell in love a little bit" when he cast then-newcomer Catherine McCormack as William Wallace's ill-fated bride, and throughout his informative commentary, the actor-director conveys genuine passion for the story and a firm understanding of the period history that informed the entire production. The accompanying documentary, Mel Gibson's "Braveheart": A Filmmaker's Passion, is a 28-minute promotional film with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with primary cast and crew. Particularly interesting are sequences revealing the equipment required for the epic battle scenes, including air cannons for firing dozens of arrows, and costly mechanical horses created to simulate animal-related violence. Viewers will especially admire the considerable challenge of filming in Europe's rainiest region, Scotland, where inclement weather enhanced the film's gritty authenticity. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
A triple helping of Mel Gibson: he is the star, director, and co-producer of this hefty new epic, which lasts nearly three hours and covers more than thirty years of medieval Scottish history. Gibson plays William Wallace, the hero with the thrash-metal hair who decides to make life hell for the Englishmen who are crawling all over his country. The political argument that ensues is pretty dull, but the battle scenes are the loudest and most convincing in years: Gibson has learned from Kurosawa in lending a clarifying thrust to what is, essentially, chaos. Patrick McGoohan has too little to chew on as the malicious king of England, and some of the anachronisms ("Take out their archers") spur the movie straight toward camp. For all its silliness, however, it stays firm, and the women give it strength: newcomer Catherine McCormack smiles and expires beautifully as Wallace's wife, and Sophie Marceau has fun as a lovelorn Princess of Wales, desperate for a real man on the side. (Wherever did they get that idea?) -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker