i want you to hit me as hard as you can
hey everybody welcome back to another edition of the best movie you never saw and this
week we're taking a look at the 1995 scottish highland epic no not braveheart the other one
rob roy starring liam neeson as rob roy mcgregor an 18th century scottish clan
chief who battles with an unscrupulous nobleman played by john hurt in the scottish highlands
Jessica Lange co-stars as his wife tim roth is the villain
eric stoltz is in it and brian cox doing double duty between this movie and braveheart this was
a good year for brian cox in scottish period dramas i have to say so let's get to rob roy!
in rob roy liam neeson's titular character borrows a substantial amount of money in order to trade
cattle and feed his people but he's robbed by an affiliate of the lord that he borrows from played
by tim roth and he's blackmailed into testifying against one of the lord's rivals but rather than
sacrifice his honor he flees to the highlands to wage war on the unscrupulous men who wronged him
this is directed by michael catton jones who also directed another pretty good movie from the 90s
called the jackal long before he ever became a middle-aged action hero and taken liam neeson
was considered pretty high bro talent basking in the success of movies like schindler's list
united artists who were attempting to re-establish their brand following a new acquisition greenlit
this old-fashioned historical swashbuckler with liam neeson as the star indeed 1995 was a pretty
big year for united artists they had goldeneye they had the bird cage and they tried to launch a
franchise with this movie called lord of illusion which was a clive barker movie starring scott
bakula but that one didn't quite work and i'm sorry to say rob roy didn't really work either
despite some really really positive reviews rob roy faced a juggernaut at the box office from the
similarly themed braveheart hit theaters only a month into its run in fact it's often been argued
that the trailers for braveheart alone were enough to doom rob roy with many viewers understandably
opting to wait for the bigger bloodier mel gibson movie leaving rob roy to eke out a
modest 31.6 million dollars domestically which i have to say is not a disastrous sum considering
the fact that liam neeson at the time was not that big of a box office star mello gibson however was
probably the biggest star in the world at this time so it's not surprising that he stole a bit
of liam neeson's thunder and i have to say as much as i like rob roy and i like rob roy quite a bit
braveheart is a better movie i mean it's a fact so by the time gibson's movie hit theaters rob roy
was mostly forgotten being banished to blockbuster video although tim roth who was very acclaimed
in his role actually received his only oscar nomination to date for his work as the villain
now i'm not going to pretend for a second that rob roy is as good or better than braveheart
gibson's film is undeniably a masterpiece and well deserving of its reputation i mean braveheart's a
movie that you can revisit over and over and over again and it just gets better and better that
said on its own merits rob roy is a pretty damn excellent movie it boasts a literate screenplay
that delves deeply into the heroic archetype the real life character rob roy represents and indeed
rob roy is a real scottish folk hero although maybe not quite as swashbuckling as his big screen
counterpart this is a high-minded film as far as adventure epics go it's less aeroflin and less
swashbuckly than you might expect in fact the film is even curiously short of action at times with
most of the battles in this pretty low key this isn't in the same league as braveheart of course
or even the recent outlaw king but it isn't trying to be it's a different kind of movie
it's a personal drama and some of the cast members actually think it's a better movie than braveheart
particularly brian cox who in an interview with random roles on av club said i think it's a much
better script than braveheart the other epic film of that time though braveheart struck a lot more
bells because of its row extensibility and also because of the sheer feat of what mel gibson had
done i thought rob roy was the much better script and i also thought from a scottish point of view
that rob roy really investigated the nature of the scottish character that was sort of duplicitous
and the survival mechanism that occurs in the feudal chain my character kill aaron
was sort of the quintessential fallen angel turned bad guy it was an interesting character to create
i don't like being around him i just didn't like the guy i thought he was horrible indeed
brian cox is absolutely his worthy against kalern although nobody steals this movie like tim roth
man tim roth is totally amazing in this movie as kind of this effeminate swordsman who
everybody underestimates because you know he wears you know frilly clothes doesn't seem like
a physically strong person but once he pulls out a sword he's unstoppable and deadly as hell so rob
roy is a pretty solid vehicle for liam neeson long before he ever really became a true action hero
with making brilliant use of his physicality as well as his more romantic side which at
the time made audiences swoon i remember my mom being absolutely in love with him in this movie
he's ably supported by a great cast which of course includes brian cox eric stoltz who pulls
off a not bad scottish accent i thought john hurt who's always good in these types of movies and as
i mentioned the oscar nominated tim roth the only person in this movie that kind of rubs me the
wrong way a little bit is jessica lange i think the role is good as his headstrong independent
wife i just don't think that she was particularly well cast her scottish accent is a little bit
cartoonish i think but i have no choice unless i give him up entire to his enemies but then again
what do i know i'm not scottish and in fact most the people in this movie other than brian
cox aren't scottish either now if people remember this movie at all and if the movie has a signature
scene it's the finale in which rob roy faces off with tim roth's archibald cunningham they
have this sword fight that goes on and on and on and is thrillingly choreographed by william hobbs
who's probably behind all the best sword fights in screen history at least from the 1970s onwards
the two of them just hack away at each other with swords and they have such a different way
of fighting tim roth's character is really fast and lean and gets in and cuts him into pieces but
liam neeson is just a hulking beast that will not be cut down and it is brutal if the movie is short
on action at all it really makes up for it in the finale because man this is one tough ass scene
there's a lot of good things about this movie though it has a great soundtrack by carter burwell
who isn't really known for these types of movies and as everybody mentioned the screenplay by alan
sharp is really good michael canton jones seems to have been kind of forgotten in recent years
he kind of disappeared after he was saddled with basic instinct too which i think was a bad enough
film that well a lot of people just you know thought that bad movie means a bad director but
he wasn't a bad director at all i mean look at his filmography he's directed some really good movies
he did scandal memphis bell the great doc hollywood which is a future best movie you
never saw i can tell you that much this boy's life which gave us leonardo dicaprio and after rob roy
he went on to direct the jackal and city by the sea so yeah basic instinct too was bad but he
was a pretty solid director it's too bad he hasn't really made a comeback because he was pretty slick
with period epics i think rob roy is a really good movie and it's a movie that i think a lot of liam
neeson's fans haven't seen or even ever heard of you gotta check it out because really this
is one of the best movies you never saw it's pretty easy to find you can find it on itunes
pretty cheaply it's streaming a lot of places in canada it's on the mgm channel i think you could
pretty much find this movie without going through too much effort and hopefully people give it a
chance because it's a real treat and it deserved a better fate at the box office and is really
a favorite of mine in the historical epic genre which i have to say is a genre that i love if you
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