Racist Nonsense

Rating: 1/10 (18 July 2000)

South Carolina in the 1780s : a land of few slaves, where the free happy black people frolic with loveable old Mel. The Americans are fun loving, god fearing men and the English are humourless plummy voiced war criminals. One would never guess from this cinematic garbage that slavery persisted in the US for another 80 years, long after it had been abolished in Britain, or that the character Martin is based on (Frances Marion) was a genocidal rapist who killed nativeamericans for fun - or that the church burning did not happen in the Revolutionary War (Emmerich borrowed the story from an incident perpetrated by a bunch of his compatriots in 1944 in France... although My Lai came to mind too).
OK so Hollywood never was much good at history and offending Brits is no big deal as it is a staple part of the Hollywood diet, but the fantasies about black life cannot be so easily dismissed.
Mel gives his routine performance - it's the same character we've grown to know in Lethal Weapon, Mad Max and Braveheart - nice family guy who turns into a blood thirsty psycho when somebody touches one of his family. Did he cut & paste, then e-mail this performance in or was he actually there in person?
Ledger is good and Isaacs makes a convincing cartoon villain. Some of the battle scenes are good, but the film is appallingly paced and an hour too long - lots of sitting around waiting for some plot or character development.
Rabble rousing fascism for the semi-literate.