One of the greatest films, not just war films, of all time

Rating: 10/10 (20 November 2006)

George S. Patton was dyslexic, well-read, a dandy and a hardened, seasoned warrior. He praised and denigrated people by race (as was private routine then) but welcomed African-American tankers into 3rd Army (at the time, as was all the U.S. Army, segregated) and even was the first commander to integrate rifle companies when manpower got tight.
"Patton" correctly salutes Patton by making a movie just as complex as he was; this film both celebrates martial glory and shudders at war's true horror. Patton read the Bible daily and believed in the efficacy of prayer even as he believed in reincarnation and used every profanity known to man to get his army moving. Patton's speeches were even more bloodthirsty than the first scene of the movie, a somewhat bowdlerized, but still stirring, version of his pre-combat speech to 3rd Army, yet as a commander he relied not upon brute force but maneuver and flanking movements to turn the enemy, get him fleeing and keep him that way. By the war's end, he had pushed the Wehrmacht further, with fewer lives lost, than any other Allied general.
The truest memorial to the veterans of WWII was written in Hollywood celluloid; "Patton" is a worthy addition, and a fine, inspiring tribute to an American legend (and all who served under him). As Patton himself, with painful self-knowledge, said while viewing the carnage of a battlefield: "War, I love it. God help me, I do love it so."