Rob Roy (film)

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Rob Roy

Directed by	Michael Caton-Jones
Produced by	Peter Broughan Richard Jackson
Written by	Alan Sharp
Starring	Liam Neeson Jessica Lange John Hurt Tim Roth Eric Stoltz Brian Cox Andrew Keir Brian McCardie
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	April 7, 1995 (USA)
Running time	139 min.
Language	English
Budget	$28,000,000 (est.)
IMDb profile

Rob Roy is a movie that was released on April 7, 1995. The director was Michael Caton-Jones. The film was generally inspired by elements of the life of a 17th-18th century Scot named Robert Roy MacGregor and his battles with feudal landowners in the Scottish Highlands. MGM/United Artists, distributors of the film, describe Rob Roy as a "riveting adventure of courage, love and uncompromising honour."

The film stars Liam Neeson in the title role, along with Jessica Lange, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Eric Stoltz and Brian Cox. Tim Roth was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the villain Archibald Cunningham.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Times are hard in the early 1700’s in the Scottish Highlands. The traditional clan system is breaking down; formerly powerful landholders like Clan MacGregor now languish in the grip of poverty, oppressed by the highly Anglophilic Lowland Scots nobility.

Chieftain Robert Roy MacGregor (Liam Neeson) wishes to better the lives of clansmen, so he asks the Marquess of Montrose (John Hurt) to back a cattle-trading venture by lending him 1000 Scottish pounds. Rob temporarily entrusts the money to his sub-chieftain Alan McDonald (Eric Stoltz), but Montrose’s greasy factor Killearn (Brian Cox) and unprincipled protégé Archibald Cunningham (Tim Roth) conspire to secretly kill Alan and pocket the money for themselves.

Now deprived of the capital with which to implement his plan, MacGregor is also deep in debt and his lands forfeit to Montrose. The two men meet to renegotiate terms and replace the stolen money. Montrose agrees to cut a deal, but with one condition: MacGregor must falsely testify against Montrose’s rival the Duke of Argyll (Andrew Keir), saying he is a Jacobite. Rob flatly refuses -- not because he knows or cares about Argyll, but out of his personal sense of honour.

Montrose then attempts to arrest and have him placed in debtor's prison. MacGregor menaces Cunningham with a knife and escapes into the highlands. The Marquess sends Cunningham with a small company of soldiers to hunt Rob down as a fugitive.

The middle of the story deals with Rob’s evasion of Cunningham and his soldiers. MacGregor's farm is burned and all of his livestock killed. His wife Mary (Jessica Lange), who had refused to go into hiding with Rob, is brutally raped by Cunningham while Killearn looks on. Meanwhile Rob's brother Alasdair (Brian McCardie) arrives just as Montrose's soldiers are leaving; he finds only carnage behind them. He also finds Mary obsessively washing in the loch and quickly deduces what has happened to her.

Mary forces Alasdair to swear to secrecy concerning her rape. She knows that Cunningham did it as a calculated means of drawing Rob out of hiding; the loss of farm and livestock he might tolerate, but a blood insult to a family member would surely make Rob abandon all caution in the name of revenge. Reluctantly Alasdair promises to keep his silence.

This entire time, a girl from the MacGregor clan named Betty Sturrock (Vicki Masson) has been employed as a chambermaid at the Montrose estate. She is infatuated with Cunningham, who has seduced and impregnated her. When Killearn informs Montrose of the scandal, Betty is dismissed in disgrace; fortunately, she seeks refuge with Rob and Mary at their new home. There, Betty reveals that she has inside information about Killearn and Cunningham's plot that may stand up in court and clear Rob's name. However, she is also in a distraught emotional state about being used and discarded by Cunningham.

Rob manages to capture Killearn, with the intention of forcing a full confession of his part in the conspiracy, theft, and murder; and using Betty as a witness. He sends Alasdair to bring her to their hiding place, but Alasdair returns with Mary with some unwelcome news: Betty has hanged herself before she can testify to anything in court. Mary insists upon being allowed to interrogate the factor herself, insisting she has a better chance of appealing to what honour he has. But the thoroughly amoral Killearn threatens to counter-blackmail her by telling Rob not only of her rape -- but of the possibility she, like Betty, is carrying Cunningham's child. Mary flies into a rage and stabs Killearn. Equally blinded by revenge and anger, Alasdair finishes the job by drowning him.

Now Rob has the truth but no material witnesses, and little choice but to go back into hiding. During one of Cunningham's attacks, Alasdair is shot and dies -- but not before he breaks his silence and finally tells Rob that Mary was raped by Cunningham. While he is detained tending to Alasdair, Rob is at last, overtaken, captured, and dragged back to the Marquess of Montrose.

Face to face with his creditor, Rob openly denounces Cunningham, accusing him of conspiring with Killearn to commit theft and murder. While Montrose is a shrewd man and had already begun to suspect the truth on his own, by this time Macgregor has caused him such great embarrassment that he refuses to listen, and sentences him to death by hanging from a nearby bridge. At the last moment Rob manages to seize the hangman's rope. He wraps it around Cunningham's throat and half-strangles him by leaping off the bridge. In order to save Cunningham's life Montrose orders the rope cut, whereupon Rob falls to the water, is washed over the rapids, and makes it to safety.

During this time, Mary has fled to the Duke of Argyll and reveals Montrose’s plot against him. She explains that her husband is in trouble for refusing to slander him. She also admits that Rob is far too proud to claim aid from Argyll for simply obeying his own conscience. Mary asks the Duke to champion Rob's cause before Montrose manages to kill him.

After Rob finds out that Mary has taken refuge with Argyll, he makes his way to her croft. They reconcile the issue of her being raped, and possibly impregnated, by Cunningham. She apologizes for her unwillingness to try terminating the pregnancy, because the child might be Rob's: "I could not kill it, husband." Although clearly grieved, Rob bears her no ill feelings, saying, "It’s not the child that needs killing."

Under a "gentleman's agreement" between Montrose and Argyll, Rob arranges a duel between himself and Cunningham. If Rob wins, the debt is to be forgiven; if he loses, Argyll will pay his bill.

In the finale, Rob looks to be losing the duel. His body has been severely abused throughout the movie; he enters the duel in poor physical condition to start with, and deteriorates visibly throughout the fight. Cunningham, on the other hand, is fresh, fast, and light on his feet. He takes Rob apart cut by cut, obviously enjoying every bit of it. But finally Rob kills Archibald by holding Archibald's small sword thrust with one bare hand. With the other, he deals such a great swashing blow with his basket-hilted broadsword to Cunningham's chest, it lays open his torso from shoulder to waist. Archibald dies before he hits the floor.

All debts and past offences settled, Rob returns home to Mary and his sons.

[edit] Trivia

The movie was shot entirely on location in Scotland, much of it in parts of the Highlands so remote they had to be reached by helicopter. We see Glen Coe, Glen Nevis, and Glen Tarbert. In the opening scenes Rob and his men pass by Loch Leven. (Loch Morar was the stand-in for Loch Lomond, on the banks of which the real Rob Roy lived.)

Scenes of the Duke of Argyll's estate were shot at Castle Tioram, the Marquis of Montrose's at Drummond Castle. Shots of "The Factor's Inn" were filmed outside Megginch Castle. Crichton Castle is used in a landscape shot.

Nonstop Highland rain presented quite a problem for cast and crew when filming outdoor shots. So did the resulting swarms of midges, a maddening local insect with a notoriously irritating bite.

This film is also notable for its outstanding swordfights which were choreographed by William Hobbs, with consultation by Robert G. Goodwin. The small, quick small sword had replaced the heavy broadsword everywhere south of the Tweed over a century before, but the stylistic contrast mirrored those of English and Scot, Cunningham and MacGregor, Roth and Neeson. Film critic Roger Ebert remarked that the climactic swordfight sequence "is the best of its sort ever done."

The part of the Duke of Argyll was first offered to Sean Connery. In real life, at the time of this story John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, was in his early thirties, much younger than either Keir or Connery. When Queen Anne died shortly after, Argyll fought against the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

James Graham, 1st Duke of Montrose was also in his early thirties, much younger than John Hurt. He was already a Duke by this time, no longer a Marquess as portrayed in the film.

The part of Mary MacGregor was first offered to Miranda Richardson.

The Ceilidh Singer was portrayed by Karen Matheson, best known as the lead singer of the Scottish folk group Capercaillie, and she sings 'Ailein duinn' - a traditional song which the band have covered.