Much can usually be forgiven in period pieces that ask us to recall important historical events and spice them with enough love interest to keep the story going. BATTLE OF THE BRAVE tackles the 18th Century struggle for the control of Quebec (an all of Canada) between the British and the French with sidebars form the new America. It has the makings of a sweeping epic of fascination, but sadly in the hands of writer Pierre Billon (whose script deserves a Razzie award for worst of the season) and the scattered, unfocused, and confusing direction by Jean Beaudin this film is a dud - a two and a quarter hour tedious mess of a film.Even a cast a fine actors - pairing Noémie Godin-Vigneau as Marie-Loup Carignan with David La Haye as François le Gardeur, adding the lovely Bianca Gervais as Acoona , the venerable Gérard Depardieu as Le curé Thomas Blondeau, and the likes of Irène Jacob, Vincent Perez (ridiculous in period wigs), Tim Roth as William Pitt, Colm Meaney as Benjamin Franklin, and Jason Isaacs as Général James Wolfe - doesn't help. Veteran actors such as these must have cringed at the crude lines written for their characters! Cover the whole mess in a sappy musical score by Patrick Doyle and the result is a long film to be avoided. Sad to say such bad things about a costly project, but be warned....Grady Harp
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