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The Patriot Customer Reviews (91 - 93 of 119 Reviews)

another "independence day" for roland emmerich
The Patriot is torn betwen its desire to be a commerical blockbuster and to be a fair representation of the Revolutionary War. This can be glimpsed by comparing the previous credits of the film's writer Robert Rodat (saving private ryan)and director Roland Emmerich (Godzilla, Independence Day). The moral weightiness of the former meets the popcorn atmosphere of the latter and the result is a flawed, but not without merit, piece of cinema. Mel Gibson is perfectly cast as a gentle caring widower and father of six who convincingly resorts to bloodthirsty rebel ways (he had previously fought in the French-Indian War)when his family's safety is first jeopardized and later torn asunder. He doesn'twant to get involved in the war dammit, but when push comes to shove, he will take on a British squadron of nearly 20 singlehandedly. This bloodthirsty segment in the film's first 1/4 gave even me pause and though its rationale is understandable, the film carries the weight of the scene uneasily towards the expectedly rousing finish when Mel doesbattle with the evil personified of the British troops (acted with relish and zest by Jason Isaacs.) Heath Ledger makes his own bid for stardom as Mel's oldest son who defies his father's orders and joins the battle against the Brits. The production design is smashing and the period detail true. And even though it goes on for too long at 2 3/4 hours, the film actually uses that length to flesh out several of the supporting characters, a worthy endeavor in a film whose ultimate prize is the $100 million mark at the box office.

Not the Most Historically Accurate, But Entertaining
While The Patriot is entertaining, there are some historical inaccuracies:

1. Cornwallis was not at Cowpens (the movie's final battle) and there was no large mansion on the battlefield! Cowpens was known as a place for cattle to graze and contained some woods but no large houses.
2. Mel Gibson loosely portrayed Francis Marion (aka "The Swamp Fox) while Jacob Issacs' portrayal of Tavington was loosely based on Banastre Tarleton. As far as I know the two never met in battle and Tarleton survived the war. Tarleton did command the losing side in the Battle of Cowpens.
3. As far as I know, there were no French at the Battle of Cowpens - the battle was fought by militia and Continental troops on the American side vs. loyalists and British troops on the other side.
4. I do not believe any record exists of Mel Gibson's character ("The Swamp Fox") ever meeting Tavington (Tarleton) or Cornwallis.

I live only about 1.5 hours from the Cowpens battlefield and have visited the site several times. So much for Hollywood historical accuracy!

Despite this, I did enjoy the movie and could feel Gibson's reluctance to join the American cause and found myself despising Tavington (killed two of Gibson's sons, burned the church with people in it, shooting wounded Americans, torching homes, etc.). In my humble opinion, I thought at least the acting was good.

Buy or rent the movie and enjoy, but be warned: there are some bloody scenes for the squeamish. Such is the nature of war!

Distorted history, bad script, yet still a guilty pleasure!
I have a lot of respect for Mel Gibson & I feel he did the best he could in this flawed war movie. That being said, the dialogue is completely laughable at times & just plain stupid at others. When I first heard about this movie I rejoiced, thinking it'd be a factual (or at least partly) account of the famous "Swamp Fox" of the Rev. War, Francis Marion. His story would make an incredible movie, but the filmmakers decided to create their own version of Marion, who becomes Benjamin Martin. It goes down from there. Have you ever seen anything so unbelievably stupid as one crazed man & two boys wiping out a group of 20 British troops?!? And how about the mandatory bad guy gets killed by the hero at the end! Nothing like a bayonet through the throat to entertain an audience! I guess they were trying to achieve another "Braveheart", but they missed their mark completely. Being a history buff makes it easier to criticize movies like this, but I will say that it's pretty hard to not be entertained by the large-scale battle scenes, which are nicely done. I'll close by saying that as history, this fails drastically, but as pure entertainment it's not all that bad.

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