Review of Robert the Bruce

It's taken Angus Macfadyen 13 years to get this film of the ground for him to get it done should be applauded however it doesn't change my thought that the film is just not that good. For starters the direction feels very amateurish in places. I'm no director but there was some shots I definitely wouldn't have used or would have asked for a retake if I was in charge of shooting. The cinematography and lighting was bizarre in some instances especially in the church where it was unnecessarily bright where it was hard to see what's going on. It's extremely slow paced and plods along until half an hour before the end. A more seasoned director at the helm probably would curb some of the Criticism of the direction. It's definitely one of the lowest budgeted films I've seen in a long time. Nothing against it being low budget however it looks like they really haven't spent that much on it at all. It just looks far too cheap for my liking. I get that they filmed it in Montana for tax reasons but it just doesn't look anything like Scotland to me bar a couple of scenes near the end. It's probably the least convincing looking Scotland I've ever seen on film. The script I just didn't find engaging at all. Sidelining the main character for a good chunk didn't help. The final speech from Robert was great but it was too little too late at that point. As for the acting just say the non Scottish actors doing Scottish accents just don't work at all. Their accents sound more American scottish than anything else. Angus Macfadyen does a good job however he is far too old to be playing a 33 year old. He moves like a guy in his 50s. I get that he wanted to play him again but there comes a point it's just too late. I get that Mel was too old to play Wallace however he was still young enough that he didn't look awkward doing the more physical things. It would have benefited the production if they had just recast with someone new. This isn't braveheart 2 despite what the marketing had to say about it. I'd say more spin off than a sequel. Where braveheart was this big action based film Robert the Bruce is this very small slow burn character based ensemble piece. It's such a shame i came out feeling like I didn't know anything new about him that I didn't already know from his portrayal in the original braveheart film. I'm not big into my history but I question how historically accurate it is. Sure things like like Robert in the cave happened but I question when it happened. The music was nice mostly however a lot of the music felt very interchangeable and you could have played any Scottish sounding music and it would have sounded the same. The lulu song at the end though awful. I'm pro independence however I'm not just going to like something blindly because it helps the cause. It's almost feels a propaganda piece. Switch the words freedom and independence and it's pretty much a piece on independence. Propaganda regardless of which side you are on is never a good thing. It definitely panders to the die hard pro independence crowd so those will undoubtably love it. If you are still on the fence or against independence I don't think this will win anybody over. I don't think this is going to spark Indyref2 regardless of how much Angus wishes it does. Cineworld got a lot of flack for not showing it however after seeing it I can see why they didn't show it. Speaking to the cineworld staff the distributors didn't even offer them the chance to show it which tells me that the whole "banning" was all publicity spin. It worked though as it wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the attention it would have done otherwise. The promotion and distribution for this has been terrible. Bar a trailer there has been very little to let people know it's coming out. The distribution hasn't been great either. A lot of smaller independent cinemas that would have been ideal for this kind of movie weren't showing it and cinemas that were was only getting 1-2 showings a day 3 at an absolute push. Angus can claim it's fake people leaving bad reviews and pro unionists trying to sabotage it with poor reviews however it doesn't change that the film is a total dud