ANOTHER HIGHLAND FLING

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

You'd think the market for movies about Scottish freedom fighters of yore would be relatively inelastic. Once a decade ought to fill such need as we have for tallish tales about brawny, if disheveled, folk heroes rallying the clans against the English interlopers. But here comes Mel Gibson's Braveheart, recounting the revolutionary doings of myth-enshrouded William Wallace in the 13th century, while Rob Roy, featuring Liam Neeson as the legendary 17th century freedom fighter, is still in the theaters. One has to suspect that this curious coincidence is inspired less by a sudden Hollywood interest in the murkier realms of British history than by an irresistible temptation to get a couple of cute guys into kilts-and common business sense be damned.

The aesthetic of the male knee being a matter far too subtle for a mere movie reviewer to contemplate, he is left with broader, possibly less relevant, judgments to pass. Chief among them is this: Braveheart is too much, too late. Gibson, who directs himself in Randall Wallace's screenplay, starts with certain disadvantages vis-e-vis Rob Roy: Sir Walter Scott never wrote a novel about William Wallace, and no one named a cocktail after him either. Got a real name-recognition problem here. Got a real length problem too. Braveheart runs almost three hours, and though it's full of incident, including several big and expertly staged battle sequences, it really doesn't have enough on its mind to sustain our full attention over that span. Freedom, Wallace keeps telling everyone, is a good thing, worth dying for. Tyranny, on the other hand, is a bad thing. It leads to rape and pillage, and besides, its soldiers always march in straight lines, which is stupid.

But we know all that; it's what historical movies have taught us over the years. What you need in this situation is world-class villainy, somebody full of wicked surprise to break up the banalities. This Braveheart lacks, though not for want of trying by Patrick McGoohan. As the English King, Edward Longshanks, he sneers realpolitik as well as George Sanders, Basil Rathbone or Henry Kissinger ever did. But he's not around as much as he should be-especially compared with Tim Roth's evil Energizer Bunny, who powers Rob Roy with his capering snottiness.

The other problem with Braveheart is its unhappy ending. After all that time, you want and expect evil to be confounded. What you get instead is the hero being tortured to death. The suspense is this: Will he crack, cry out in pain, thus robbing posterity of an inspiring example of masochism-sorry, heroism? Come on. That's Mel Gibson the wild horses are trying to pull apart. Of course he's going to die stoically. Everybody knows that a non-blubbering clause is standard in all movie stars' contracts. Too bad there isn't one banning self-indulgence when they direct.