Unlike 12 Years, a movie that made no concession to the audience’s thirst for comeuppance, Birth of a Nation is very much a revenge movie — one that has been compared to Braveheart, even if Turner is never as wild-eyed or ferocious as Mel Gibson’s William Wallace.
But in its depiction of an underdog hero who fights injustice by taking up arms, The Birth Of A Nation also echoes sweeping period dramas such as Braveheart — which, incidentally, also won Best Picture.
Subtlety is dispensed with in the film’s final third, which echoes “Braveheart,” with its hero who gives his all fighting for the freedom of his people.
Vengeance is his, Nat hears from the lord, and The Birth of a Nation becomes a freedom manifesto as bloody as Braveheart, primed to inspire and disturb.
Many have already compared it to Mel Gibson's "Braveheart," which is apt.
Apparently made in tribute to bad 1990s epics, The Birth of a Nation boasts Braveheart battles and a Legends of the Fall score and doesn’t offer a single original visual idea.