Some
actors are destined to revisit the same character in vehicles produced by very
different filmmakers, like Peter Ustinov portraying Hercule Poirot or Bela
Lugosi as Dracula. It turns out Angus Macfadyen will be similarly identified
with Robert the Bruce. When he played the Scottish icon in Mel Gibson’s
Oscar-winning Braveheart, the focus was on the Bruce’s tragic failings.
However, he would redeem himself. That is why he is considered a “national”
hero. It is understandable why Macfadyen would want to return to the role to
tell that tale, but this isn’t that film. Instead, the future king’s literal
winter-in-the-wilderness is the subject of Richard Gray’s Robert the Bruce,
co-written by Macfadyen, which releases this Friday on VOD.
When
the Bruce tells his army at the end of Braveheart: “you died with
Wallace, now die with me,” it is not exactly the St. Crispin’s Day speech, but
it was appropriate. Die they did. As Gray’s film opens, the Bruce has been
crowned king of Scotland, but only a remnant of his army remains. The common
people revere him as their king and a symbol of Scottish independence, but most
of the powerful clan leaders are aligned with England. Recognizing reality, the
king disbands his army, but that leaves him vulnerable to turncoats out to
collect the bounty on his head.
Robert
the Bruce will be harder to kill than they expect, but he still suffers serious
wounds at their hands. Fortunately, the king finds refuge in the mountain cottage
home of Morag and her children, but it puts them in an awkward position. She is
the widow of a soldier who died fighting with the Bruce, but her brother-in-law
is the local sheriff, who is loyal to England and highly motivated to collect
the reward for the king’s capture.
There
is some hack-and-slash action right at the start, when Robert the Bruce has his
infamous duel with John Comyn, and then again during the climax, but there is a
lot of talk and farm-work in between. Frankly, the Bruce spends a good quarter
of the film hiding in a cave. Admittedly, doing justice to the Battle of
Bannockburn could have been understandably beyond the film’s budgetary means,
but it concentrates on a decidedly odd period of the king’s life.
Still,
Macfadyen finds grandness in the Bruce’s redemption, despite the film’s relatively
small scale. It actually helps that he is older and more grizzled. In terms of
tone, it is a lot like the Unforgiven of Scottish swashbucklers, but
Macfadyen and co-screenwriter Eric Belgau still invite us to believe in the
possibility of justice and heroism.
Macfadyen
really is terrific as Robert the Bruce and so is Anna Hutchison playing the
resilient Mortag, but a subplot involving her bratty son Scot gets tiresome
quickly. Jared Harris is also entertainingly villainous, in an appropriately
flamboyant way in his brief but pivotal appearance as Comyn (good enough to get
his name on the one-sheet). However, the rest of the combatants are essentially
interchangeable stock figures.
In
some ways, Robert the Bruce delivers rewarding payoffs, especially for Braveheart
fans, but it could have been much more. It is more than a footnote, but it
is not an epic either (despite the sweeping vistas lensed by cinematographer
John Garrett). Mostly just recommended admirers of Braveheart, Jack
Whyte novels, and the legendary king, Robert the Bruce releases this
Friday (4/24) on VOD platforms.
