The Patriot
Movie Reviews | Jun 30th, 2000
Starring Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Chris Cooper, Jason Isaacs, Lisa Brenner
Written By: Robert Rodat
Directed By: Roland Emmerich
I hate the British!! That’s what you feel like after seeing this movie. Of course I don’t.
The situations in the movie are brutal and just plain fucked up! This movie was excellent and filled with emotion. The movie isn’t as good as Gladiator or Braveheart, but a lot more darker than both of them. Mel Gibson is one of my favorite actors and his performance is definitely one of his finest. This has to be one of the best Amercian Revolution movies. Another good performance was from Heath Ledger and I think he will become the next Mel Gibson after seeing this movie.
The story in a nutshell is that Ben Martin (Mel Gibson) was an old war hero and veteran who chooses not to fight in the revolution because of his 7 children. His oldest son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger) enlists in the army and circumstance forces Martin to join the Army and create a militia to fight the briitsh. There’s one scene where Mel Gibson is fighting and he’s just kickin’ ass like he usually does, and I actually spoke outloud and said “YOU GO MEL !!.” haha.
John Williams score is again amazing and definitely helps out the scenes of battle. The music is very patriotic (duh..of course), filled with flutes and snare drums. If anyone plans on buying the Patriot soundtrack before seeing the movie, be sure there is a BIG spoiler on the back, I found out the hard way. Oh well. The character development was put together well because I cared about most of the characters in the movie. The one I wanted to die the most was the British villian, Col. Tavington (Jason Isaacs) . I heard Matt scream out “FUCKING KILL HIM!!!” and I was saying the same thing in my head. He was just a freakin’ bastard in the whole movie!! I could see why the British were getting angry again for Mel beating the shit out of them. I guarantee people will be bitching about this movie because it has kids in the movie with guns and rifles. Oh no!! Why must the public always complain about movies. It’s JUST A DAMN MOVIE!!
Back to the review, Paul brought up a good point that there were several sub plots in the movie and they should have sticked to one. There would be one about love, slavery, war, and some others. The movie was too long and my ass was hurting after awhile from those damn seats. I’m sure they could have edited out like at least a half hour worth of stuff. On the plus side though, the effects were cool, bullets coming right at the screen, killing people, chopping soldier’s heads off, and the effects tripled the amount of soldiers on the battlefield. The title of the movie doesn’t really show us that Mel Gibson is a patriot until the end and most of the time it’s based on revenge. Overall, there was some little minor details that I had problems with, but the movie was excellent and Mel Gibson kicks some Limey ass once again! Definitely worth seeing this summer.
Favorite Scenes: When Benjamin Martin goes after the British for his captured son, Gabriel…
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