Shameful!!

Rating: Null/10 (18 March 2004)

I dunno? Maybe it's because the American Mel Gibson spent so many of his formative years in Australia he now feels the need to prove he's more American than the rest?? This is a solid entertaining movie but as history, "it sucks big time" as our American cousins would say. I won't give away any "spoilers" because I wouldn't want to dignify the plot of this disgusting film with response. Ok, a quick history lesson. By 1770 the British Empire was a fat lazy monolith, led by a fat lazy degenerate king. Britain's American colonies had quietly become a nation in the making; they'd "come of age", but the Empire just couldn't see it. What we should have done (with hindsight) was to accept the inevitable and welcome this new nation. What we did is, history. Britain did not lose the war, they failed to win it - just like America in Vietnam!!! The British Empire could have won (and I'm glad it didn't) but there was no domestic support. That again should ring a bell across the atlantic. As an amateur historian I'm really angry with all concerned. The Patriot presents the Americans as saints and the British as nothing more than nazis. Rubbish!! The scary thing is that young Americans might watch this distortion and actually believe it; just because Hollywood says it was so. You'll notice that Gibson's Black servants weren't slaves. For God's sake! They must've been the only free African-Americans in the whole of South Carolina back in the 1770s!! This appaling film has actually damaged British/American relations and for that I'd like to give Mel Gibson a metaphorical kick in the goolies. So, my American friends. if you get the chance to see this film I hope you'll enjoy it but PLEASE remember, it is fiction.