Rating: 
Summary: Laughable!
Review: Any student of American history will be alternately cringing and laughing through this movie...if you can sit through the whole thing! Should be called-How Mel Gibson Single-handedly Won the American Revolution...
not worth the tape it's printed on...
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining but Ridiculously Inaccurate
Review: "The Patriot" is an immensely entertaining, action packed film with some of the best battlefield and hand-to-hand combat scenes in modern cinema. Mel Gibson plays a retired British soldier and master of a tobacco plantation, named Captain Martin, in South Carolina at the start of the Revolutionary War. As the colonists get fired up and prepare for the eight-year struggle that will ultimately make them Americans the Captain is reluctant to join in the action. Having earned a bloodthirsty reputation in a controversial incident during the preceding French and Indian War, Martin wants no part of the horrors to come. But Martin is unable to prevent his son, Gabriel from enlisting with the rebels and when the tide of the war turns against them, a wounded Gabriel finds himself back on the plantation pursued by British dragoons. When the evil leader of the dragoons captures Gabriel and leads him off to be executed, Martin is suddenly forced to dust off his old war trunk, retrieve his tomahawks and pistols from it, and to fulfill our cinematic hopes by blasting back from his retirement. What follows are some amazing, rifle ambushes, swash buckling, realistically choreographed tomahawk fighting and a whole lot of absurd historical propaganda.Historical propaganda? Yes, I'm afraid so. While the battle scenes in this film are immensely realistic, the historical picture it portrays is specious to the point of idiocy. I don't mind that a whole lot of rhetoric floats around about "the cause" and "the country" and any other allusions to the magnificent nation to come when in fact the primary cause of the Revolution was the desire to eliminate excessive British taxation. It doesn't even bother me that the film makers go overboard in vilifying the British by having them massacre civilians in a scene more reminiscent of Nazi occupied Europe or a Central American village that had fallen into the hands of CIA trained death squads. What really irritates me is how in a scene that screams of revisionism, a black slave joins the colonists in their final battle and says he's doing it "for the cause". Doesn't he realize, as the audience surely must, that when this war is over his people still have one hundred years of official slavery ahead of them, and another hundred years of brutal oppression to follow? Or do the filmmakers hope to persuade us that the Revolutionary War was a beautiful, egalitarian, multi-cultural event? Somehow I doubt audience members will go home and pick up Charles A. Beard's "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States" which clearly spells out that the sacred parchment that ultimately resulted from the Revolutionary War represented a very narrow class of white property owners and excluded the poor, blacks, and women. Having enjoyed Mel Gibson's visceral tomahawk handling, our kids will go home and think that slavery played no part in the building of this country because the black guy in the movie got to fight alongside the white guys "for the cause". It's funny how we have to rate our films for healthy things such as nudity and sexuality but not for something as destructive as a flagrant historical lie.
Rating: 
Summary: a outstanding dvd
Review: this dvd the patriot is i think the best i own, the stereo and picture quality with nice color is great, the story and action is amazing, this is one everybody should have.
Rating:
Summary: Not All Blood and Gore Epic
Review: As a follow-up to the amazing success of Saving Private Ryan, its creators decided to try their hand at the American Revolution. Their idea turned into another amazing epic. Mel Gibson shines brilliantly as a soldier-turned-father who must decide whether to join the ranks of the Americans fighting for freedom from British tyranny or to remain away from the field of battle and raise his seven children following the death of his wife. A relative newcomer (to me anyway) Heath Ledger is also amazing as the son, Gabriel, who joins with the American forces. Gabriel fights along with his comrades and also falls in love with a girl from his youth. There are epic battles, daring escapades, romance, and even some light-heared comedy in this sweeping epic. There is so much more to this film than the nomal shoot 'em up war movie. The Patriot has heart, soul, humor, an so mch more. A father is torn between his duty as a father and the duty to the values he holds dear. Although some of the characters in the movie are fictitious, I found it very refreshing that a great deal of historical data was presented throughout. This is one amazing film!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good-looking, bloody revolutionary war epic.
Review: Mel Gibson stars as Benjamin Martin, an aging father of seven children who must protect his oldest son when he goes off to fight the British in the American revolution. Director Roland Emmerich's first attempt at "quality" filmmaking suffers from too many corny subplots and cartoonish villains (though Jason Isaacs delivers a delightful, scene-stealing turn as the evil Colonel Tavington). But Mel Gibson is great as usual, the battle scenes are exciting and rousing (the first ambush is truly riveting), and the film is visually captivating. This may not say much, but The Patriot is probably Emmerich's best film to date.
Rating:
Summary: War Movies At its best
Review: I have seen many War movies and dramas, Bravehart being one of the best. But The "Patriot" now takes the crown for "Best war drama".Mel Gibson does to war epics that John Wayne did to westerns. Bravehart, We were soldiers, and The Patriot, all the top three, and this epic has the water mark moved to its limit. What this movie does so well that others have tried but failed is blend realism,Drama,anger,rage,and tenderness all in an epic package. I am very critical on movies about history, and I will tell you I have never been more pleased on two fronts before, both on Realism and drama. I will share this movie with my family to remind them why not to take this Freedom for grannet and to remember those who gave there lives so that we can live in liberty.
Rating:
Summary: Paralegalweasel
Review: This is the dopiest war movie I have ever seen. It is full of drivel and pap. If you are a Mel Gibson fan, stick with Braveheart and forget this [stinker]. Any American history buff should also avoid this movie. It is a waste of time
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Film
Review: This is just a fantastic film you must own! I thought it was
very interesting to watch the way that battles were fought during
this time in our history. The redcoats marching in line while we used guerilla warfare to defeat them. If you are a left wing
liberal, you probably won't like this film. The film is not about slavery or racism. If you are British, you won't like it either though you make like the film ZULU which shows the British slaughtering blacks in Africa and depicts them as heroes even though they had no business being there.
Rating:
Summary: A tremendous movie
Review: The Patriot is cinema at it's finest. With great acting and fantastic directing, I can't think of any other way of putting it. This is one of the better war movies that I have ever seen. Mel Gibson, in my opinion, gives one of, if not the best performances of his career. He makes you feel for his character and the things going on around him. You feel great sympathy for his family and the ordeals that many families in the war times of the 1700's went through. This is a mark of a good actor. He basically took over the movie and made it his. The cinematography was out of this world also. The setting was beautifully photographed. The directing was also top notch. I'm not too familiar with Roland Emmerich's work, but I will definitely check out his other films. Everything about The Patriot I absolutely loved. If only more movies could be made as well as this one. 5 Stars
Rating:
Summary: Makes me ashamed to be an American :(
Review: Even though this horrible, historically inaccurate fantasy/ slapstick comedy detracts from what actually happened during the American revolution, it is my hope that our British counterparts won't let sleazy hollywood dictate how they should feel about us Americans as a whole. A majority of us "yanks" are actually a decent, intelligent lot who can think for ourselves. We are not the racist, David Duke, nationalist flag-waving goons as portrayed in movies like "The Patriot". Unfortunately, there are those in this country who share the similar ignorant views of Mr. Scott that America is the sole savior of the world, out "to help other nations". It's this kind of dangerous thinking that had us barely running out of Vietnam alive with tails between our legs in the first place. It was more than enough to unite a 4th world nation of mostly rice farmers to defeat what was supposed to be "the greatest and most powerful nation in the world". That's how much they love us. The phrase "Gao thom con chuon chuon" just
doesn't have the same ring to it when spoken in english, either. Having said all that, I would like to convey my sympathies along with many other Americans to our British friends here. Movies like The Patriot, Saving Private Ryan, U-571, Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down are not only an insult to Britons, but also to American intelligence. You know it's crap when Mel Gibson runs amok and single-handedly killing every enemy he sees in sight. It's so sickening that it makes me feel ashamed to be an American.
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