unoriginal film

Rating: Null/10 (2 October 2000)

I've got to hand it to Mr. Emmerich... this is his least clunky, most American-looking film to date. That said, it still was a piece of garbage. He must have watched Mann's Last of the Mohicans a dozen times but was unable to figure out why its battle scenes worked. As a director, Emmerich has no patience to let an action scene unfold at a natural pace-- you can imagine him hammering the square into the round hole back in nursery school. The only time he allows the camera to linger is while admiring the pumping lungs of a corset-enhanced woman. In addition to his trademark single-purpose composite characters and rapid, disjointed, filmed-on-different-day cuts, he has now added to his arsenal an obnoxious use of slow motion (a la Renny Harlin) and Saving Private Ryan-style fast motion/high exposure/low frame rate footage.
As for the script, there are several fleeting original, interesting moments, ==== MARGINAL SPOILER ==== such as how the anxieties of battle show on his two youngest boys' faces. However, these moments are far too rare. Instead, we are stuck with historical and popular sound bites: "Taxation without representation," "All men are created equal," and, at one laughably placed moment, "It's a free country!" I was surprised not to hear "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" or "Remember the Alamo!"
When the bit characters were looking to the director for tips on motivation and period behavior, I'll bet he handed out copies of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The film's treatment of black people was an incredible insult to blacks and the intelligence of the audience as a whole. Are we such simpletons that we can't handle complex, contradictory heroes?
Other critiques have suitably ripped apart the authenticity and historical accuracy of the film better than I ever could. Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions of better revolutionary war movies. Maybe the one good thing to come from The Patriot is that other, better films exploring the period might be coming soon.