The Patriot

Rating:
Summary: The Patriot
Review: What I thought was that The Patriot would just be Braveheart on American soil shocked me. Mel Gibson plays a totally different charcter with excelent performances from everyone. Special praise is deserved to Jason Isaacs who played his part perfect. You rarely see a Villan done so well with such malicious intent.

Rating:
Summary: Above average for Roland Emmerich, I suppose.
Review: With so many good to brilliant historical epics out there (the magnificent-Braveheart, Gladiator; the great-Glory; and the good-The Last of the Mohicans), I was hoping perhaps The Patriot could reach to one of those levels. Well, it doesn't really happen, but the movie still happens to be quite decent and fairly good.

I suppose I was quite bothered by the movie's dull and predictable storyline, along with some unneccessary subplots and an at times overwrought score from John Williams. I might be a little too harsh on this film, but it's only because it squandered a superb first 40 minutes. I suppose it's never good when the movie's highlight occurs a quarter into the movie's running time, which is the case with The Patriot. The ambush sequence where Mel Gibson and two of his young sons try to rescue Heath Ledger is such a frenetic, powerful, heart-pounding, and simply intense action sequence, it made me think I would be watching a masterpiece. The setpiece features Gibson attacking 20 British soldiers, using rifles, flintlock pistols, a hatchet, and a knife. It's made so believable, you never question that Gibson's character could falter in the slightest against these soldiers. This sequence matches the best battle scene of any historical epic, but unfortunately the movie goes a bit downhill afterward.

I couldn't believe writer Robert Rodat would actually include sappy subplots, overdone cliches, and some manipulative drama into the film. That's not to say that after those first 40 minutes, the movie is terrible. No, there are still some dramatic highpoints, one in particular featuring a great encounter between the characters Benjamin Martin and Lord Cornwallis, and another involving an event that surprised me completely involving some certain characters' deaths) and the two full-scale battle scenes that Emmerich choreograph are impressively done.

Speaking of the battle scenes, the last one, which runs nearly 10 minutes in length, is exciting but not masterful, mostly due to an unwise choice from Emmerich of featuring Mel Gibson waving his flag, somehow convincing retreating soldiers to push on ahead (there were even some soldiers who didn't even see the flag but magically knew to turn around). The battle finale of Glory was more impressive due to its emotional power, something which seemed to be missing in The Patriot's last several minutes. The fighting may get the adrenaline pumping, but it's curiously slightly less involving without true emotion.

And yet, despite all the battle scenes, ambushes, and skirmishes (at least half a dozen shown in all), The Patriot moves at a surprisingly slow pace. At some points, it even threatens to bore the viewer.

I suppose I'm complaining a bit too much, but I did have high expectations, and The Patriot only managed to meet some of those. Most everybody else I know seem to love this film, so I suppose Emmerich's "crowd-pleasing" standards seemed to have come through again. Still, this year's best epic is still Gladiator (or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon if you count it as one).

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME MOVIE
Review: I'm 13 and I've seen this movie 4 times and each time I saw it I loved it! From the very beginning of the movie you want to know what is going to happen and there are very few scenes that are boring! From the first time to the fourth time I saw this movie I loved it and even if the historical information behind the movie is inaccurate, who cares it's a movie and what is a movie supposed to do? ENTERTAIN! and that's exactly what this movie does! I definately recommend this movie to people who like action and are willing to put their pride away and let their emotions run wild, believe me I did!

Rating:
Summary: Great war movie.
Review: Mel Gibson is one of those actors who you just wont see in a bad movie, and The Patriot is no exception.It takes place during the Revolutionary war.Mels family is terrorized, and he decides to take action by assemling a group of freedom fighters.They ambush wagons and do all kinds of sneaky tricks.This movie is so dramatic and the acting is just simply amazing.You will even be impressed by the acting of the hatable enemies.The Patriot is very dramatic, but will not bore you for one second because it is very action packed, but its not just stupid and sensless, its for a cause.I can safely recommend this excellent movies to anyone who well.......anyone who likes watching good movies.

Rating:
Summary: Braveheart?? I think Not!!
Review: Mel Gibson has to be one of my favorite actors. His ability goes beyond his good looks and the big action usually associated with his movies. While I had no problems with Mel in this movie, nor the action, the movie dragged, was too cliche, and relied on a love story that was never substantiated. Emmerich was never able to bring any life to the "emotional" scenes that were interspersed throughout the movie. But I don't want to knock on the director, nor the actors too much, for a movie that had a script stock full of cliche's and an immature initiation of Gibson's rage, which anyone watching the movie could see coming a mile away. The action that followed was one of the most intense scenes that I had ever witnessed, outside of the first battle scene in Braveheart. But the movie could not stand on the first rate action alone, which was too little and too far between. I unfortunately have to pit the Patriot against Braveheart (arguably one of the great cinematic achievements of our time). While Braveheart was written so well that good acting was not necessary, but present, to bring out emotion, the Patriot couldn't force it out of you, even with two death's that were before their time (who didn't see either coming). The movie was definitely too long and was weighed down by the minutes, whereas Braveheart moves along at a pace unhindered by time. Lastly, the ending. Maybe Mel was turned off by his Braveheart demise and in this movie went for the exact opposite, or maybe he thought a movie about the revolutionary war should end on a good note; whatever the reason, he missed with this heartwarming end. How much better would it have been had he died on the battlefield, what a fitting tribute for any patriot that believed in what they were fighting for (not to mention just one other way that Braveheart exceeds the Patriot ten-fold).

Rating:
Summary: The best movie of 2000
Review: I was a little apprehensive about seeing this film. It looked like Braveheart in the United States this time. But when I forced myself to watch the film I was totally immersed in it. The action is good the story line is excellent. Mel Gibson pulls off another excellent performance. This is by far the best fim of 2000.

Rating:
Summary: Mad Max has got a Tomahawk and pony tail.
Review: Welcome to the world of the modern epic-A world where history itself will be distorted to fit into a demographically audience tested action film formula while many of it's tiniest details are meticulously made as accurate as possible. It's not a documentary after all, it's a summer blockbuster from the genius' who brought us Independence Day, Godzilla, and 13th Floor. It's gotta be good. Right? We'll spin an American Revolution tale that's part Rambo, part Outlaw Josie Wales and part Mad Max. The previews will make it look like Braveheart set during the American Revolution, right?. We'll get John Williams to score the thing at his pompous best. Mel Gibson will give us a really good performance, we'll have a romance or two, and then we'll make sure it's good and bloody too.

In fact if there was this much blood in a slasher film, it would be rated NC17. But, this is a big budgeted picture about a war, so, some splatterfest blood here and there is okay. Take a head off with a cannon ball? Sure. Let a child watch dad put an Ax into someone's forehead-oh it'll be fine. Sadism? Brutality? It's war, it's a big budget summer blockbuster.

The film is not as utterly predictable as I thought it might be. It has a lot more gore and brutality than I was expecting and some very dark plot twists. That's the good news. The bad news is, the film is also a lot more cornier and dumber than I thought it would be. Hard to believe that a film made today can be cornier, and sillier than films made 50 and 60 years ago. Well perhaps a lot of the cliche's and corn can be blamed on screenwriter Robert Rodat he certainly had practice being corny and sentimental with much of his script for Saving Private Ryan. And I can't say I was expecting a great deal of depth from the directing/producing team of Independence Day and Godzilla.

But the corn and sentimentality are just the beginning.

I am not an African-American but I was very disappointed with how the slavery issues are all but ignored in a film set primarily in South Carolina. How the blacks who work for the lead character aren't slaves, 'but work the land freely'. How it's the British who will enslave these supposedly free blacks and force them to fight for them for the promise of freedom if they survive and the British win. (In reality both sides promised slaves their freedom for fighting for them and it would be the last time the military was integrated in the U.S. until the Korean War.)

Even now in the year 2000, in what amounts to popcorn movies we feel the need to whitewash our history and turn our past into not just politically correct versions of history but utter historical fantasies. The Disney studios of the early 1960's would have given us a more accurate view of the South than this movie does. And it's not okay just because it's ultimately a dumb summer blockbuster movie, because a lot of people believe that at least parts of the film reflect with some accuracy what history must have been like. There is at least some truth to what occurs in the movie The Patriot. And there's a lot of period detail accurately on display in this film. Costumes were painstakingly recreated right down to the type of stitching they used back in the 1700's. Accurate historical detail is another matter all together. Mel Gibson plays Benjamin Martin, who is based loosely on a real character. But the inspiration for the character was a slave-owner and so obsessed with getting revenge on the British he used brutal tactics not just against the British but also in getting people to join his militia.

If you're looking for a big, sprawling, overly patriotic bit of inaccurate goo, this film will fit the bill nicely. Mel G as Benjamin Martin will lose his cool and become Mad Martin, shooting and then chopping up British Soldiers until he's covered in blood. Wait till you hear his description of how he became a hero in the French -Indian Wars at a place called Fort Wilderness.

So as your groaning at the corny lines and wincing at the cliches, and shaking your head over the lame attempts at humor, you can rest assured you'll be treated to some spectacular, sometimes very bloody action sequences.

The chief villain is also loosely based on a real person. But here, he's made into a horrible, sadistic, nasty brute of a man who will shoot an unarmed 14 year old boy in cold blood in front of his father, and drag off the father's other son to be hanged. James Bond needs villains this cruel. Jason Isaacs professionally spits out the scenery he chews upon. He makes a good Snidely Whiplash of a villain. The fact his real life counterpart wasn't quite this despicable matters not to the film-makers. Making things as cartoonish as possible is what made them a ton of money with Independence Day, and they were hoping to strike gold again in a film about a different kind of Independence Day.

Actors like Joely Richardson and Chris Cooper and Rene Auberjonois aren't asked to do very much at all. They play their caricatured roles as convincingly as anyone could.

I suppose we should be grateful we have a film that is at least superior to the Al Pacino /Hugh Hudson stinker Revolution (1985). It is ... but that's not saying much at all.

You'll thrill at the scene where Ben picks up an American flag his son has been repairing and leads a rag tag army against the British. You'll ignore how Ben is nearly killed, sliced open with a sword, and within a day or two is completely recovered and riding a horse again.

The film is loaded with corn and cliche's. Ben Martin is really the only character in the film who's got any depth whatsoever and everything is so ridiculously stacked in his favor even his vengeful, bloody methods seem more than justified against the utterly evil and sadistic British.

The DVD has quite a few extras including a director and producer commentary and a couple of behind the scene featurettes which detail the historical accuracy of the period details . There's also a short segment showing how they digitally created hundreds of extras for the battle scenes, and how they blew a man's head off with a cannon ball. It's splatterific !!!!

I started listening to producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich's blow by blow commentary track on the DVD. Sometimes director , producer and actor commentaries can be quite interesting either from a technical film-making perspective or from a colorful behind the scenes story perspective. Sometimes the commentaries are very funny, sometimes they are very insightful and downright educational.

I knew this was not going to be one of the most memorable of commentaries when Devlin and Emmerich began by gushing unashamedly over their own company's logo at the beginning of the movie and how it was the best part of the film. A bad joke...because they are at least partially right-- maybe the logo is the best part of the film.

Chris Jarmick, Author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder-a steamy cyber- thriller ...

Rating:
Summary: Gibson for President!
Review: Truly an outstanding performance by Mel Gibson! While it has been stated by most to be along the lines of Braveheart, it does have the same feel but, it is every bit a different movie. The color and sound of this DVD is superb. A great action- feel- good movie with a roller coaster emotion ride. Gibson makes you feel his character and the location and scenery add to this spectacle. So grab your musket and some popcorn and dig in for the battle ahead.

Rating:
Summary: An inferior copy of Braveheart
Review: I made the mistake of watching "The Patriot" for the first time just after rewatching "Braveheart," next to which the former pales by comparison. Gibson does his usual competent job in portraying Benjamin Martin, a former soldier and widowed father torn between his perceived responsibilities to family and community, and haunted by the memory of his own capacity for violence. However, the rest of the characters appeared one dimensional and uninteresting to me, particularly the evil colonel, who is a cardboard cutout villain with no redeeming qualities (the writers don't even bother to delve into his motivations for the atrocities he commits to set himself up as Martin's nemesis). The movie dragged at times, as well, despite the beautiful trappings; the dialogue lacked sparkle, and the "humorous" scenes, such as the one involving the ink... just weren't my cup of tea.

I must admit that "The Patriot" inspired me to crack a few dusty volumes of my encyclopedia and old U.S. history textbook to re-educate myself on the real participants in the Revolutionary War. But if you want a moving and compelling story about a reluctant hero's courageous fight for freedom, skip this movie and watch Gibson's powerful performance in "Braveheart" instead.

Rating:
Summary: Ultimately it's your choice but . . .
Review: I highly recommend this movie. I've read a lot of the reviews and seen many disparaging The Patriot's plot, historical accuracy, and just about any other aspect of it you can think of. Despite the weight of these opinions, I still stand by mine, which is that the Patriot is an entertaining, thought-provoking film. What I mean by 'entertaining' is not the smile-on-your-face kind. Many scenes riveted me in suspense or despair, such as when the children are hiding in the aunt's house and the heartbreaking burning of the church. Also, I appreciated the family aspect of the movie, especially the character of the young daughter, Susan. Of course, I realize that the movie was calculated to elicit these emotions, but I didn't mind at all. And even if the church scene was historically inaccurate, you cannot deny the fact that such atrocities DO happen in this world, and often at a larger scale. The film left me thinking about the cruelty of people and of war in general. It also sparked my family's curiousity in the Revolutionary war. We looked up an article on Francis Marion and tried to find out what exactly was the level of atrocity in that war. My final word: This film will prove itself engaging, if you just let yourself be engaged.