Freedom As Secondary Gain.

Rating: 6/10 (31 August 2013)

Sigmund Freud interpreted hysterical symptoms as part of the working out of repressed childhood memories. Someone pointed out that being sick also got you a lot of sympathy and attention. Freud -- no sociologist -- dismissed all that as "secondary gains." This movie, for all its epic sweep, doesn't really deal with freedom from King George's sometimes whimsical rules for the colonies.
It's the story of the rebels' revenge on the British redcoats who are snobs and sadists. Independence, freedom, representation -- all that nonsense is a secondary gain compared to the motive to kill certain individuals who have harmed the militia. It might as well be a Western, with the redcoats as Indians, except that here it's the colonials who use sneaky tactics and the Brits who march around in loud jackets in the open, inviting attack. I don't know why it's called "The Patriot" because patriotism has little to do with it.
The writers and producers always have to handle the Revolutionary War very carefully. After all, Americans and Brits have been allies in any number of wars, large and small, and have generally supported one another since 1812, when those damned sons of Albion burned down the White House in Washington. Maybe that's why there are so few movies about the Revolutionary War. Classics like James Fenimore Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans", John Ford's "Drums Along the Mohawk", and John Wayne's "Allegheny Uprising," are all about the French and Indian wars, known in Europe as the Seven Years War.
The Americans at that time weren't Americans yet, just overseas British citizens. We avoid Revolutionary War stories because the mental gears begin to grind and a lot of cognitive dissonance is stirred up. The result is discomfiting. It's good that we don't have to extend this cinematic tenderness doesn't apply to the Germans or Japanese. If Hollywood had to do that, it would mean an end to war movies.
The film itself is rather routine, though colorful and filled with action and sentiment. Splendid scenery. Many slow-motion deaths, a hoary cliché long before this came out. There are good people and there are evil people. All the colonists are good. The Brits as a whole aren't really bad, just one or two rotten red astrachans in that crimson barrel. Tom Wilkinson as General Cornwallis (Kids: he was a British soldier) is perfect in the role. He plays it in the way of classic English actors, projecting thoughts and emotions without carrying on about them. He's been splendid elsewhere too, a fine actor.
Poor Jason Isaacs is the sadistic officer, tolerated but not approved of by Cornwallis. He has the coldest blue eyes known to man or beast, except for those of my ex spouse. I believe make up has clipped off his eyelashes to make his icy irises stand out more ominous, as in a comic book. He may be a good actor too but there's no way to tell because the script has him trapped in a swampy stereotype. Everything he does is pure e-vil. Why, man, he burns down churches full of innocent civilians! Burning a church is one thing, but with the whole congregation locked inside? He gets his comeuppance in the movie, which his real life counterpart never did. The real guy went on to serve in parliament and died in 1833.
Mel Gibson is okay as the Homeric hero, wielding his tomahawk, teaching the farmers how to shoot and run away, to set traps for the enemy -- but no useless slaughter. He was never a very expressive actor but he's reliable enough and easy to identify with if you're as handsome and well built as he and I are.
The locations are splashy and evocative, nicely photographed. The sentimentality is less than I'd expected. I got rather a kick out of it, even though it was thoroughly predictable, right down to the smallest incident. If you enjoyed "The Adventures of Robin Hood," you'll like this too, bloodier though it is.