Superior to Braveheart

Rating: 8/10 (4 July 2000)

I know the strong opinion of most who've written here regarding this film, and perhaps I'm chancing my already tenuous reputation as a reviewer to say it, but all the same I'm willing to put this on the line: The Patriot is one of the better historical fiction movies of the past ten years.
Is it fastidiously historically accurate? No. Characters use standard American English accents, and some modern colloquialisms are present. Slavery, which was a fact of life in the colonies, is much played down--perhaps in our politically correct times, this is inevitable. But the makers of The Patriot are not striving to create a period piece in which every bit of historical minutiae is perfect--rather, they seek to create a certain mood about a period of our history.
Mel Gibson gives one of the better performances of his career, as a widower and father whose former bloody past haunts him. All he hopes is to see himself and his family spared from war--alas, the war comes literally to his doorstep. To his credit as an actor, Gibson is perfectly credible in a role that requires him to go from a gentle family man willing to nurse Redcoats back to health, to a gore-drenched Colonial nemesis repeatedly hacking into a British soldier's body with a tomahawk--all within the space of about twenty minutes.
This film is superior to Braveheart largely because, as an action-oriented film, there is less posturing and more action. Simple men are not usually in the habit of giving rousing speeches; Gibson's character does not. His men stick to him and trust him not for his fine words before a battle, but for his consistent actions during one.
There is definitely some character typecasting: Our Hero, the Love Interest, the Noble Villain, the Ruthless Villain, the Doomed Young Lovers, etc., and the movie has taken some knocking in the press because of it. However, I challenge these detractors to name a single classic work which does not employ such stock characters. Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the Italian commedia dell'arte style are immediate examples. No, Shakespeare this ain't. That doesn't mean it isn't a worthwhile movie.
If you want to revel in the thoughts of the idealists who forged the Revolution, rent 1776. If you're curious about what it must have been like for the common men, the workers and traders and farmers of the Colonies and their families, to become involved in a war that was not of their choosing, you should see The Patriot.