Averagely good.

Rating: 6/10 (10 August 2000)

If what you came to expect from 'Braveheart' was gloriously presented battles, a taste for gore and a bitter revenge subplot, then have no fear, your expectations will be met.
Sadly, 'The Patriot' doesn't quite live up to the sheer bravado and guts of its predecessor for a number of reasons. The first is that it's about 20 minutes too long, with rather too long, at times, between the action (and don't give any of your 'it's an intellectual film' arguments). Secondly, most of the characters are painfully underdeveloped. Thirdly, and most importantly for me as an Englishman, it is a risibly one-sided look at a war which, like any other, had its heroes and its villains on both sides. I counted two, just two vaguely sympathetic characters on the side of King George. One dies in the first skirmish of the film; the other seems to be going along fine until he decides to set fire a church, slaughtering tens of women and children.
Mel Gibson is, as ever, excellent, as are several of his co-stars. But if Hollywood is to be the judge and jury on the morals of world history, then woe betide any Brit who steps ashore the USA for as long as the memory of 'The Patriot' lasts.