Rating: 
Summary: STIRRING AND MOVING
Review: Once again, people crave for authenticity...the way it really happened....and once again, I say, "It's a movie. It's entertaining and moving....I didn't take my history book along to make sure it was totally accurate. I like escapism, and movies that move me." This movie did that. It's beautifully filmed by the respected Caleb Deschanel; the music by John Williams is moving, and the cast on a whole is exceptional. Mel Gibson has been labeled an okay actor, but if you look deep inside his performances, the man does his best in filling whatever shoes his role dictates. As the family-oriented and somewhat stubborn father, he evokes the pain he feels from his actions in an earlier battle with the French; he seems devastated by his youngest daughter's silence to him; and he loves his family. Joely Richardson is effectively cast as Mel's sister in law, who helps take care of his family during this crisis. Heath Ledger is all gungho and spirited as Gabriel, and plays well with the rest of his cast. Tom Wilkinson is superb as Cornwallis, a man steeped in tradition and British fanfare. His scene with Gibson in which the patriot negotiates for the release of his 18 prisoners is exceptional. Jason Isaacs is pure evil in his role as the heartless Haverton (or whatever), and shows that war to him is merely licensed murder. The rest of the supporting cast: Chris Cooper, Rene Auberjonois, Adam Baldwin, Gregory Smith, Mira Boorkem, and Donal Logue, in particular, are great additions.
The movie is a manipulative film, of course...how else would it work, but it's to director Roland Emmerich's credit, that when the credits were over, I felt moved and touched. That's what films are meant to be in my opinion.
Rating: 
Summary: An ambitious but disappointing war epic
Review: In "The Patriot," director Roland Emmerich tells the story of Benjamin Martin (played by Mel Gibson), a colonial landowner whose family becomes involved in the American Revolutionary War. The film wants to be a sweeping historical epic with a heart, but its flaws weigh it down.The film aims at "Saving Private Ryan"-style realism in its warfare scenes, but this goal does not fit well with the childish humor and high school-ish romantic subplots that mark the rest of the film. In terms of plot and characterization, the script piles one stereotype and cliche upon another. Particularly ill-served are the British characters. With the exception of one amoral sadist, the British are all basically ridiculous fops. Many of the movie's scenes are blatant ripoffs from scenes in better films. Pay attention and you'll see scenes ripped off from "Star Wars," "Aliens," and more. "The Patriot" has been harshly criticized for its whitewashing of the issue of slavery. I must admit that this is one aspect of the film that I found most unsettling. It is ironic that while the film aims at realistic battlefield carnage, it presents an insultingly simplistic, "fairy tale" view of happy colonial African-Americans. And it is just too convenient that all of the blacks on Martin's property are freemen. That said, the film has some good points. There are some effective performances. In particular, Jason Isaacs is electrifying as the ruthless British officer Tavington. The film has outstanding production values (it picked up Oscar nominations for cinematography, sound, and score). Give "The Patriot" a try, but watch it with a critical eye.
Rating: 
Summary: Complete and Utter Waste of Time
Review: I am genuinely surprised at this movie's good rating!
1)The historical innaccuracy is horrible
2)It is a movie that glorifies the WRONG things about the American Revolution
3)The love story is nauseating
4)The characters are weak and underdeveloped. Mel Gibson is an ok (Just OK) actor. Most of the others are too, with some really really bad ones thrown in- just for kicks!
5)People say it was entertaining- really? I was writhing through the entire thing. Oh, and the war scenes really aren't that gruesome... maybe its because I saw Kill Bill a month ago? I wish I didn't waste my time with this movie! Please, please watch something else! There are so many better (historical or otherwise) movies!
Rating:
Summary: Not Just Another Braveheart
Review: When first news of The Patriot reached my ears, i thought, "Oh, great, Braveheart 2. Mel Gibson kicking British booty." However, upon seeing The Patriot, I was completely proved wrong and fell in love with the movie. As opposed to many critics, I found the movie to be a fabulous film. Mel Gibson delivers a great performance as a family man/French and Indian War hero with a dark past trying to be a single dad and build chairs. However, when the Revolutionary War enters his front yard and threatens his family, he is forced to take arms against the British. Gibson is backed with the strong performance of Heath Ledger, who plays his son. The movie follows Gibson and Ledger as they lead a band of militia in South Carolina against General Cornwallis and his massive army of redcoats. The Patriot does have a few corny moments, and some very grotesque violence, but how can a movie possibly be bad when John Williams does the music? The Patriot isn't Braveheart, but it definitely can hold its own.
Rating:
Summary: yet another history major
Review: I am a huge fan of this movie. I am reasonably knowledgeable about the American Revolution, but I certainly make no pretense of being an expert. However, I would like to respond to some of the criticisms that have been made about the film in regards to its historical accuracy. It seems to me that most of the things that are considered controversial are difficult to characterize as being either historically valid or not.
For example, when it comes to the most harrowing moment of the movie, the church burning scene, the producers themselves make no pretense that this actually happened. However, there are endless anecdotes about other acts of unspeakable cruelty. Torture and mutilation seem to have been rather commonplace in this particular theater of the war.Of course, some of these tales may be nothing more than wartime propaganda. I think that the best way to put this in perspective is to recall that the British considered the colonists to be guilty of treason. The British penalty for treason at this time was singularly unpleasant. What Tavington did to the colonists in that church may have been little worse than what they might have endured if they had been arrested for treason and shipped overseas to stand trial. Also, remember that the British used Native Americans during the revolution as allies. People who had the misfortune to fall into their hands as prisoners of war could expect treatment that would make the cruelty depicted in the Patriot look like something out of a Disney movie.
Simply put, the critics are correct in claiming that the scene is a fabrication.However, it is so heavily inspired by reality that there is little reason for anyone to claim that it is unfair. I have read that the man who was responsible for the most American suffering was actually a jailer. He simply pocketed the money that was supposed to supply their food and let many of them starve. But, of course, this storyline doesn't make nearly as exciting of a movie.
Another thing that seems to draw a lot of criticism is the portrayal of Tavington, the evil British commander. He is heavily based upon Banastre Tarleton, but there are elements of other people in his character, as well. Some have claimed that he was too cruel to be a believeable figure. I am not at all sure about that. I think the producers simply wanted to make him a symbol of what was most heinous about the war. This has led some to call him a mere caricature. However, his only genuinely unbelieveable trait is his lack of human empathy. While his hard-heartedness is certainly unusual, we all know that such people do exist. This seems to be the defining characteristic of what modern psychology calls a sociopath-the lack of empathy for the suffering of other people. Handsome? Cunning? Utterly ruthless and cruel? It sounds like Tavington, but it also sounds like Ted Bundy, who was all too real. Overall, the movie gives him credit in the area where the real-life Tarleton would have probably most wanted it-as a soldier. Tavington is depicted as fully the equal of the hero in regards to strength and courage. If you'll recall, in the climactic fight with Benjamin Martin, he basically had the fight won, but forfeited his life by taking a minute to gloat.
Again, he is an unreal character, but he is not nearly as farfetched as some folks seem to imagine. I believe that such attacks on the movie reveal more about the critics than they do about the movie itself. Any doubts? Ask yourself one question: Have any of these people ever complained about the depiction of the movie's hero? After all, the Mel Gibson character admitted to having participated in a massacre when he was a young man that, by his own accounts, was probably just as painful for the victims as what Tavington did later on at the church.Yet I have yet to hear one word of complaint about that fact. Such people will attack the movie for 'deifying' the hero owing to his being the employer of free men rather than slaves. I suppose that the fact that he admitted to butchering people(while they were still alive) was not enough to save the film from being accused of whitewashing history.
It's not perfect, and the critics do make some valid points. All in all, though, I do feel that the Patriot is a better exploration of the motivations behind fighting than most war movies. Mel Gibson's character is not a man who jumps because some bureaucrat behind a desk tells him to. He fights only when provoked, which is far more in keeping with traditional American ideals than most of our recent military machinations.
In the end, I love the movie and the extras are pretty good. Most of the criticism is rooted in validity, but is excessive in tone. The film isn't perfect, and I would prefer that it had been about twenty minutes shorter. But for people who love adventure stories that feature strong, charismatic characters, I would recommend this one highly.
Rating:
Summary: Review from an American History major- it stinks
Review: I was recently forced to watch "The Patriot" for an assignment, as I was to analyze its historical accuracy. Needless to say, the film is so wildly inaccurate that it's probably more entertaining if you view it without having much knowledge of American History. However, "The Patriot" is relentlessly mediocre by any standards, at least in my opinion.
"The Patriot" is filled with historical howlers. Why did the British lose the American Revolution? Because they pissed off Mel Gibson! Why did the Americans rebel against the British? Because they were purely noble, while the British were heartless Nazis and aristocratic fops. There is never any mention of the economic reasons for the colonies going to war against Britain. According to "The Patriot", race relations in 18th century South Carolina were quite good; sure, there were a few bigots, but they had all been won over by the end of the war, and the slaves themselves were happy to serve their kind masters. This fantasy world, of course, leaves no explanation for South Carolina's secession and the Civil War less than a century later, or even the Civil Rights movement of the 20th century. All the women in "The Patriot" are outspoken and willful, and treated as absolute equals by the men- this leaves no explanation for the feminisit movement over the next two centuries.
For all the above reasons and more, I was very irritated when I analyzed this film for historical accuracy. However, it's really not a very good movie anyways. I suppose Mel Gibson has some charm, though I was not affected by it (let's just say that after last year, I dislike him with a Passion). Heath Ledger is less effective, as he's downright boring and in the center of a painful romantic subplot. Then there's Jason Isaacs, who plays the British villain with such over-the-top menace that I often found him ridiculous. This guy burns down houses and murders women and children just for the fun of it- he seems pulled straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon.
Overall, the film's pace often flags, and its climax leaves much to be desired. This is a very going-through-the-motions movie, and it's pretty easy to predict the end of every scene. Only one event in the entire movie surprised me (that being the conclusion of the negotioations between the protagonist Benjamin Martin and General Cornwallis). Director Roland Emmerich is obviously out of his league here- he's known for directing entertaining disaster flicks, not historical epics. I'm afraid a couple good battle scenes do not make a 150-minute film.
I can't really recommend "The Patriot" to anyone other than Mel Gibson fans and those who believe that the American Revolution was divine and holy, with no flaws or moral amibguity (those kind of people are probably Mel Gibson fans anyways). This is an inaccurate, overblown, and borderline boring film.
Rating: 
Summary: Mel Hates the Brits
Review: The credits say that this film was directed by Roland Emmerich. It also says that Robert Rodat wrote the script. That said, this film has star Mel Gibson's fingerprints all over the creative input. Any resemblance to "Braveheart" is more than a passing coincidence. This film is rousing entertainment, however. Just don't take it for historical accuracy. The film kind of stacks the deck for the good guys. Mel plays a widowed plantation owner with a gaggle of kids and he employs freed blacks. He'd just as soon sit the revolution out except those nasty redcoats are just so evil. They kill one of his young'uns and they lock a congregation inside their church, including his daughter-in-law, and burn it down. Now there is no historical record of the British committing such an atrocity,but, hey. The film also kind of inflates the role of militias in the winning of the war. Where would the army of George Washington have been without them? Did I forget to mention the pre-teens who pick-off the approaching British troops? All kidding aside this is a thoroughly entertaining film that happens to use the American Revolution as it's backdrop. Mel is his usual stolid self. Heath Ledger as his son gives a charismatic turn. Tom Wilkinson does the most he can with the role of General Cornwallis who,on paper, is buffoonish. Jason Isaacs is evil incarnate as Taviston, the loathsome British officer. Really good camerawork here by Caleb Deschanel. The definitive film about the American Revolution remains to be made. Unfortunately, "The Patriot" isn't it. But it's light years better than "Revolution", an Al Pacino turkey from 1985. Al came to the revolution by way of Brooklyn in that one.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the Worst Films of All Time
Review: This popped up on my Amazon wish list for some reason and I just had to respond. In my mind, this joins Joe Versus the Volcano, Titanic, Pearl Harbor, and The Avengers movie as one of the five worst films I have ever seen. This is not for want of some good acting: Mel Gibson is actually one of my favorite actors and Heath Ledger does a surprisingly good job with the film.
No, the main problem with this film is that it is too Hollywood. We can't offend African Americans so we've got a South Carolina plantation owner who has African free men, not slaves, working his field. Our hero has to be the most sympathetic character, so we make him a widower secretly pining for his dead wife's sister. The plot is contrived and obvious: there won't be a single development that you don't see coming from miles away.
Perhaps most controversial and appalling in this film is the portrayal of the British. The crimes committed in this film by British forces have absolutely no basis in historical fact. Indeed, one of the things that is totally ignored in this film is the fact that the rebellion was particularly potent in the southern United States because the British government was starting to move to limit the slave trade. I'm not normally someone who cares that much about the 'message' in movies, but when you're changing historical facts for convience's sake you've done everyone a disservice. The irony is that a film about the ambiguities of war would do so much to make a fundamentally ambigous conflict like the Revolutionary War so black-and-white.
Rating:
Summary: Jumping from the Swamps to Freedom.
Review: Director Roland Emmerich is used to conduct big budget movies. He usually delivers good pieces of work as "Independence Day" (1996) and "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004).
"The Patriot" (2000) is arguably his best film up to today.
The story centers on a peaceful American that abhors war due to his past experiences. In an incident, one of his teenage sons is murdered by a British officer. This event drives him mad and he launches "all-out" guerrilla warfare, rallying his neighbors into active resistance.
Mel Gibson is fleshing again a patriotic hero enraged by injustice as in "Braveheart" (1995). He has the knack for doing it; viewers will empathize with his character. His performance is high quality.
The supporting cast is very good, all his sons & daughters especially Heath Ledger and Skye McCole are great. Joely Richardson as Charlotte Shelton his sister-in-law and later fiancé; Tcheky Karyo as Jean Villeneuve the French officer; Jason Issacs as Col. William Tavington the "bad guy" of the film; Adam Baldwin as Capt. Wilkins and last but not least Tom Wilkinson as Gen. Cornwallis flesh their characters very believable.
Reconstruction of the period is very accurate. Battles are filmed with sure hand, very good visual effects and outstanding coordination of mass movements.
It is a great movie for history buffs and general public.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
Rating:
Summary: The Patriot, and the War for Independence
Review: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ... whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government ..."
1775:
After more than a decade of enduring various measures including highly unpopular taxations, insensitive customs regulation, peace-time quartering and maintenance of standing armies, deprivation of trial by jury, the largely unpunished act of the Boston Massacre, and other British misuses of authority and legality ... Colonial America was ready for war. Some colonists had started gathering arms for the eventuality.
And Britain - harboring the recent memory of the December `73 "tea party" in Boston harbor, as well as other acts of rebellion, riot, and intimidation - seemed just as ready to suppress.
In April, General Thomas Gage deployed troops to dismantle colonial military storages in Concord, New Hampshire. On the 19th local minutemen, forewarned by Paul Revere, met British redcoats on Lexington Green ...and however initially gradual it was to catch on, the colonies' historic fight for independence from England, famously known as the American Revolutionary War, began. (The quote above, excerpted from the Declaration itself, actually originated after the eruption of war; it does, however, open an incisive window into American political feeling at the time.) Colonial victory at Concord, and the immediate aftermath, drew out much patriotic support throughout New England. About 16,000 residents took up a siege of Boston, forcing the British to withdraw the next March (`76).
Later, in June, Thomas Jefferson drafted an official document stating the colonies' independence from the British Crown. The formal declaration was revised and finally adopted in the early evening of July 4, to be signed by an eventual fifty-six men. Not surprisingly, American statesmen shortly thereafter rejected terms of peace and pardon offered by England through (General) William and (Admiral Lord) Richard Howe. General Howe organized his troops and forced a colonial army under General George Washington in Long Island to retreat, first to Manhattan, then to White Plains. General Charles Cornwallis then pushed Washington from New York down to New Jersey, where the former stopped for winter at Trenton, and the latter camped opposite him along the Delaware River's Pennsylvania bank. Washington and company crossed the Delaware late Christmas night, and surprised Cornwallis' garrison. When Cornwallis regained control of Trenton, Washington escaped and proceeded to overpower British reinforcements at Princeton. His victory gave new life to the waning patriotic spirit of the war.
Further north, British General John Burgoyne began leading an army southward. His July of `77 capture of Fort Ticonderoga was briefly enjoyed, however. He suffered a double defeat at Albany by American Generals Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold, and surrendered at Saratoga in October.
Following a loss at Brandywine Creek and a meager outcome at Germantown, Washington and his Continental Army wintered at Valley Forge. The general was fortunate, as he had in his services a Prussian officer (von Steuben) who trained his men in more efficient methods of combat, which turned out to be substantially helpful in securing a much-needed victory at Monmouth, NJ, the following June ('78).
That month, France declared War on England and mobilized a fleet, and would later become instrumental in the sieges of Savannah and Yorktown. The Spanish declared war on England the next year, 1779, with the Netherlands following suit in 1780. The insurgency was no longer a merely internal affair, but an international event.
Meanwhile, Cornwallis had regrouped in the South. In mid-August, he all but demolished General Gates' army at Camden, but saw defeat at Kings Mountain (October) and at Cowpens (January). After a brief clash in North Carolina, Cornwallis headed into Virginia and rooted himself within Yorktown. French naval forces drove the remaining British navy out of the Chesapeake, and then moved in on Cornwallis; Washington was there, and he too pressed in: the two surrounding him, working away at his forces. On 19 October 1781, Cornwallis surrendered.
The war on American soil had ended. Fighting still continued at sea, but from here out until its conclusion in 1783, most engagements took place between British, and corresponding European enemy, vessels.
The thirteen colonies emerged an infant nation.
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Columbia TriStar's summertime fireworks-and-flags flick THE PATRIOT strives to set itself firmly on the historical ground of Revolutionary America, even if sometimes it loses its footing.
Set against the backdrop of the late-eighteenth century colonial period, the movie tells the story of Benjamin Martin, a South Carolina farmer who desires peace among a growing spirit of rebellion against England. But when an unusually cruel British colonel threatens his family, Martin turns deadly and joins in the fight. He bravely leads bands of enlisted men into battle, through victory and defeat, often outnumbered, in the struggle to win the independence of the states.
Benjamin Martin seems to have been partially modeled after Francis Marion, the elusive "Swamp Fox," as the British dubbed him. Like Martin, Marion was from South Carolina. Like Martin, he fought in the French & Indian War. Like Martin (occasionally), he fought redcoats guerilla-style. UN-like Martin, he probably never opposed the American rebellion. Nor is it likely that he ever faced Lord Cornwallis, let alone outwitted him. (The filmmakers really strayed from history here, since Cornwallis was, by all accounts, a highly intelligent strategist, and may have been England's most capable commander in North America.) Colonel Tavington is himself based on real-life British officer Banastre Tarleton, known as "Bloody Ban," a ranking lieutenant colonel commandant who employed cruel tactics against Americans during the war.
But the film does get other things right as well. The issues of tyranny and despotism were both apparent and decried by Americans, and treason was probably the commonest charge invoked by the British on those who advocated rebellion. Armies fought each other wherever open lands permitted. If that included your back or front yard, so be it. Many within the militia - most of whom were farmers - utilized guerilla warfare techniques, finding them to be their most useful defense strategy. The British, not unlike previous empires, had an affinity for using fire: they burned houses, barns, supply stores, and yes, even churches - in at least one or two cases. Christianity permeated much of colonial life. Preachers are known to have joined, and in some cases they led, the fight for a nation's liberty. Bundling bags were a means (at the time) of preserving virginity until marriage.
Mel Gibson appears convincing as Benjamin Martin. Jason Isaacs does better, as Colonel William Tavington. But it is Tom Wilkinson who puts in the best overall performance, as the General Lord Cornwallis. Where acting is not so much of a problem, the screenplay can be. When Martin politely asks to sit next to his sister-in-law, she replies, "It's a free country ... or at least it will be." Would any colonial have made such a casual remark, in the middle of war? Let us not forget that the `Amendments' of the Constitution were yet to be formed. Nobody at the time really had a great sense of freedom. They yearned for it, to be sure, but not so much to possess it as some abstract concept; what they sought was a self-governing liberty, total independence from Britain. Elsewhere, the Frenchman tells a slave-hater, "Your sense of freedom is as pale as your skin." While this is certainly possible, it in no way represents the general mood of the time toward slavery, which the director mostly glosses over. Instead, it would have looked better to drop the statement and show a bit more of the slave's struggle to acquire that freedom, amidst the ungrateful boos of racists. And what happened to the accents? Despite their opposition, most colonists were Englishmen enjoying English culture in English colonies. The majority should have had British accents, and those that didn't should have had other European accents. No specifically later-American ones. As for the plot, a couple of times elements during or following action sequences are improbably portrayed. Once, a British officer is shot in either the stomach (one of the most painful areas, it is said, in which to get hit) or the side, and falls over. Just before he is decisively stabbed, he inexplicably summons the strength (and knowledge?) to whirl around and thrust his sword into his would-be killer. Just before a character finishes off his nemesis, he says, "My sons were better men," knowing that he'd killed them. But, in the case of one son, he neither sees nor hears `who' killed him. He just finds his son on the ground, dying an on-the-battlefield death, with little further indication as to who may have fatally wounded him (it's knife-related, which would narrow the possibilities down but not single out any one person). This leaves us wondering how the father figured out the killer's identity. And, while not actually a flaw, it should be noted that the French helped the American cause NOT because they were pro-America, but because they were anti-British. Finally, in one scene, the special effects used to convey ship sails and masts look phony.
But none of these missteps make THE PATRIOT a bad movie. Nor does the fact that it is so much like Gibson's earlier film `Braveheart'. It is, in fact, quite good. Most of it is serious and very entertaining, and we can be thankful Roland Emmerich didn't repeat his earlier mistake ("Independence Day"). Too few movies have been made about this specific period of American history, and this one is noble in its attempt to show us what our forefathers and their contemporaries sacrificed to secure our freedom.
DVD features include director/producer commentary, various featurettes, deleted scenes, photo galleries, and theatrical trailers.
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