terrible history, but an OK brainless action flick -- Conan the Patriot

Rating: Null/10 (25 July 2006)

As someone of Bristish ancestry, I feel very offended by this film... But on the other hand, the story is entertaining, the costumes are well put together and the military technology is for the most part well presented. Apparently Mel Gibson thinks we English are Nazis. Lets think, hummm, who ended slavery first the US? Very funny how the slavery issue is dealt with in the movie given the fact that it was the land of the free where slavery was accepted for another 80 years (after the war of 1812, Britian refused to give back slaves freed by the British armies because they argued that people are not property).
It would be nice to see an honest film about the revolutionary war... people struggling for self determination and puritan ideology (a leftover from the disastrous English civil war) on the one side and on the other side a superpower not really knowing what to do, but above all not wanting to lose face in a manner that would make its rivals (e.g., France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Turkey, Spain) think it was weakening.
If you can get past the horrible depiction of the British, and the excessively nice depiction of the American, then the movie is an OK story about being forced to fight for ones family. It might be argued that this is fiction, but the story is about real events and present a very distorted depiction of real events that has the danger of distorting the audiences perception of those actual historical events. If Mels wants to write pure fiction, set the story in a fantasy world (e.g., like Conan the Barbarian, or Star Wars). If on the other hand Hollywood creates a story that touches upon real events in a manner than can damage the audiences understanding of it, I think there is an obligation to keep to historical facts.
Incidentally the battle near the end where the Americans turn the tide in the movie was actually a pretty small affair -- Cowpens. It was an important battle because it was a turning of the tide where the American began to work out tactics that were affective against their more experienced but less numerous foe. The book "What if 2" cites it as one of 13 times when the revolution was in danger of collapsing.
Certain aspects of the film accurately depict how an invading army would act at the time... seizing food supplies, burning houses, rounding up enemies & spys etc... this was standard and not something unique to nasty British. Its called foraging. No army leader with any brain is going to leave behind resources that could be used by the enemy. The British however were one of the first armies to place explicit limits on foraging and destruction. During the siege of Quebec city (1758) the British soldiers were explicitly told not to burn any church because despite the general anti-catholic nature of the English commoner, the British leaders recognized that all Churches were sacred and that destroying churches would unnecessarily hinder the process of conquest. So burning a church by itself would be inaccurate, burning it with people inside would be unheard of.
The movie also fails to depict atrocities committed by "patriots" against loyalists.
I think that the real disappointment is that the movie chose a cowardly approach of making the hero all good and the enemy all bad. We don't need to see the British colonel as an evil man. Hollywood never seems to understand the power of its own media. Executing a spy would have been within the rules of war (still are today), seizing property etc., but the movie goes out of its way to make him bad. He was justified in shooting the silly kid, but it would have made a better story, if he was shown to regret it (or if one of his men had shot the kid). A firm, but honorable enemy (just doing his job, fighting for his King, protecting his back) would have been a much better choice. A sympathetic portrayal of the enemy would actually be (1) closer to the truth, (2) make a more definite stand about values (what they're fighting for -- For Independence and self determination, not against British brutality), and (3) help reconcile old wounds by redefining the battle as one about a clash of values, not a clash of good vs. evil. Few wars (if any) are about good vs. evil.
Mel, how about making a film about the revolution that both American and British citizen can watch, enjoy and come away thinking, now that was a good movie. Instead Mel chose to vilify the British to sell tickets... ironically he did this at a time when the old enemies continue to form part of the strongest superpower alliance the world has ever seen.