Rob Roy

[Panache]

I enjoyed the movie a lot. I thought Tim Roth gave a great performance as Archie

it is also one of the closer portrayals of accurate swordplay than most of hollywoods horrific sword twirlers. It's certainly not without it's flaws but it is one of the closer to accurate ones.

As a former fencer I concur. What they were doing was very believeable.

SPOILER ALERT

When the movie first came out I had a discussion with one of my employees about the duel. Now this employee stood 6'6" and weighed at least 300 lbs. to my 5'10" and 135 lb. He thought it wasn't realistic that a smaller man could cause so much damage to his larger foe. I explained that the smaller man, with the slimmer blade, and very precise training would be much faster.
Speed, I said smugly, allows us smaller slimmer men to beat our larger opponents. "Didn't the little guy get chopped in half in the end?" he questioned. "Well... yes...but he won the duel, Archie just got cocky at the end", I mumbled. He looked down at me "Well that's why we big guys always win. The little guys always get cocky when they are ahead. Then we big guys chop you little guys in half", he smiled and left the office.

I think he may have had a point

Cheers