Braveheart (1995)

# 47

Legendary Scottish rebel William Wallace (Mel Gibson) experienced a heroic death during a brutal execution scene after he was found guilty of high treason. He courageously withstood torture ("I'm not dead yet") and then died for his cause at the Tower of London.

First, he was stretched (partially hung with a rope by his neck), racked (or stretched in mid-air by ropes tied to his hands and feet), and then disemboweled in a public display.

Showing continual resistance, he defiantly cried out his last word, not "Mercy" as he was commanded to beg, but:

"FREEEEE-DOMMMMMM!"

The executioner was given the nod to kill him. He turned his head to the side - and had a vision of his already-murdered wife Murron (Catherine McCormack) - seen walking in the crowd as a ghost and smiling at him.

After he was beheaded with one swinging stroke of a sharp axe (off-screen), his death reunited him with her. The bloody rag he held clenched in his fist dropped to the ground.

Casino (1995)

Director Martin Scorsese's gangster crime drama was replete with many brutal killings and murders, especially as the corrupt Las Vegas casino empire began to crumble, especially after a car-bombing attempt on the life of organized crime boss Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert DeNiro) (the film's opening scene).

There were a brutal scene of two murders of two mobster enforcers committed during a clandestine meeting in a remote Indiana cornfield ("out in the styx"). A deal was arranged with the mob bosses to kill fellow gang-member Nicky in exchange for clemency:

• Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro (Joe Pesci), brash, volatile, psychopathic and hot-headed, the film's main protagonist, who was having an affair with Rothstein's lover Ginger (Sharon Stone), and was presumably responsible for the attempt on Rothstein's life
• Dominick (Philip Suriano), Nicky's brother

They were savagely beaten (Dominick first, and then "Nicky") within inches of dying by their own thuggish gang members wielding metal-baseball bats, led by Frankie Marino (Frank Vincent).

After being brutally beaten and stripped, they both suffered a barely-alive burial in a recently-dug ditch-grave hidden amongst the corn stalks.

In voice-over, Rothstein explained the reason for the hit on "Nicky" - his hot-headedness:

The word was out. The bosses had enough of Nicky. They had enough. How much were they gonna take? So they made an example of him and his brother. They buried them while they were still breathing.

Dead Man Walking (1995)

Director Tim Robbins' dramatic film about viewpoints on capital punishment told about a death row Louisiana prisoner convicted of murder, although he denied his guilt until the very end.

Matthew Poncelot (Sean Penn) was ordered to die via lethal injection. His comforting spiritual counselor/Sister Helen Prejean (Oscar-winning Susan Sarandon) was able to have him confess his guilt, and ask for forgiveness from the victims' families just before his death. He appealed to the dead boy's parent for forgiveness, and also to the dead girl's parents - hoping that it would bring them peace:

"Mr. Delacroix, I don't wanna leave this world with any hate in my heart. I ask your forgiveness for what I done. It was a terrible thing I done, taking your son away from you...Mr. and Mrs. Percy, I hope my death gives you some relief."

His last words were:

"...I just wanna say I think killin' is wrong, no matter who does it, whether it's me or y'all or your government..."

Until the very end, Sister Prejean poignantly assured him while he was strapped on a cross-shaped gurney, as the victims' families and the comforting nun witnessed the capital punishment behind a glass window:

I want the last face you see in this world to be the face of love, so you look at me when they do this thing. I'll be the face of love for you.

GoldenEye (1995)

This was the 17th film in the series, and the first of four films starring Pierce Brosnan as Bond, the famed 007 agent.

The main femme fatale villainess was:

• Xenia Zaragevna Onatopp (Famke Janssen), brunette, a Janus Syndicate assassinatrix

Xenia played (and lost) a game of baccarat at a Monte Carlo casino in S. France against James Bond (Pierce Brosnan). Afterwards, she lured Canadian Naval Admiral Chuck Farrel (Billy J. Mitchell) of the Department of National Defence, back to the Admiral's own luxury yacht the Manticore, moored off the coast.

Soon after, she became engaged in love-making with him, in order to distract him and acquire his NATO ID card - to later hijack a prototype Eurocopter Tiger helicopter onboard a French warship.

The nymphomaniacal assassinatrix achieved a violent orgasm while suffocating him with her long legs wrapped and clamped around his mid-section - as she crushed him to death with her thighs. He screamed out:

"Xenia, I can't breathe."

When Bond discovered the Admiral's corpse the next day when it fell out of a closet on the yacht, the dead man still had an eerie grimace or grin on his stiff face.

GoldenEye (1995)

Crime syndicate Janus' lethal enforcer Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), known for crushing men to death with her thighs to produce sexual sensations (see above), experienced her own crushing death.

In her last attempt to take James Bond's (Pierce Brosnan) life with her deadly legs, she tried to attack him after he had survived a light aircraft crash in the jungles of Cuba.

While she was crushing him between her thighs ("This time, Mr. Bond, the pleasure will be all mine"), he clipped her into her harnessed rappelling rope, and shot with her weapon toward her circling helicopter above.

When the chopper began to crash, Onatopp was propelled backwards into the fork of a Y-shaped tree, where she was brutally crushed by the impact. Bond quipped:

"She always did enjoy a good squeeze."

GoldenEye (1995)

In the film's exciting conclusion, Bond (Pierce Brosnan) made his way to a transmitter-antenna high above a satellite dish (programmed to control a second deadly, rogue GoldenEye satellite weapon).

Villain Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean) pursued him and the two engaged in a fierce, running fight-to-the death gun-battle and fist-fight.

Bond evaded being killed by Trevelyan when he extended a long ladder and dangled himself high above the parabolic dish. When Trevelyan attempted to dislodge him, Bond was able to reverse the situation, and he held his enemy over the dish by his ankles, and they exchanged a final brief conversation before Bond dropped him:

Trevelyan: "For England, James?"
Bond: "No. For me."

After the villain fell to the ground, the second GoldenEye satellite exploded and disintegrated harmlessly during re-entry in the upper atmosphere. Bond dove for the landing skids of a helicopter gun-ship that Bond girl Nayalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco) had hijacked, and they flew off into the jungle to escape, as the transmitter exploded.

The massive, flaming structure crashed down on Trevelyan to end his life - his death was filmed with a rapid, zooming-in shot on his open, screaming mouth.

GoldenEye (1995)

Janus crime operative and nerdy hacker/programmer Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) yelled out a phrase with which he often praised himself:

"I am invincible!"

He thought he had just repositioned the transmitter antenna to communicate with a rogue destructive GoldenEye satellite.

Shortly afterwards, he believed that he had survived the destruction of the underground lair ("Yes, I am invincible!"), but then was covered by a wave of liquid nitrogen that erupted from ruptured fuel tanks.

Frozen solid, he perished in a celebratory pose.

The Quick and the Dead (1995)

In Sam Raimi's parody of spaghetti westerns (with multiple gunfights, gunplay, shoot-outs, fights, and hangings), a violent and barbaric annual competition was promoted in a quick-draw gun-fight in the lawless western town of Redemption Arizona between:

• John Herod (Gene Hackman), the town's evil, tyrannical and ruthless mayor
• Fee "The Kid" Herod (Leonardo DiCaprio), his own trigger-happy, cocky, tough-talking son, a "Billy the Kid" archetype

Herod didn't want to face his son: "Drop out. You've made your point," but the Kid responded that he wanted respect:

The gunfight is in the head, not in the hands. The only thing that makes him invincible is because you all think he is. Maybe five years ago he was the fastest, but uh, time catches up with everyone. He's just a little bit slower than he used to be. And as for myself, would you believe it, I just reached my peak.

The Kid shot his father Herod in the neck, but was lethally shot in the stomach (he spoke before falling to the ground: "S--t, that was fast").

As he expired, the Kid asked six-shooting female gunfighter Ellen (Sharon Stone) (whose father was murdered by Herod in her youth): "Did I get him?...Did I kill him?" and was told: "You were so fast, Kid." The Kid sobbed:

"I don't want to die. I don't want to die."

He stretched out his hand to his wounded father standing above him before dying.

The Kid's Death

The shootout itself was filmed with an impressive and frenetic smash-zoom (push-pull) camera movement.