Historically inaccurate

Rating: 7/10 (3 November 2005)

The Patriot is a good movie, but a bad historical analysis.
Mel Gibson as Benjamin Martin is not the most believable character, and neither are the rest, for that matter, but the movie works nonetheless.
Historically, however, this is a disaster.
* The American in the Dragoon regiment... Dragoons were nearly all aristocrats themselves. A colonial would be as unlikely to be found in a Dragoon regiment as King George himself.
* Martin's singlehanded annihilation of a platoon of Redcoats in the forest, with a collection of muskets and a tomahawk. The muskets may well have been Pennsylvania Rifles, and as such quite accurate, contrary to what many say, but with a re-loading time of more than a minute for an excellent marksman, something Martin's children were unlikely to be.
* Zee French Colonel waz too very much zee ster-ee-otypical Frenchman. Vive la France! * Apparently artillery in the 1700s was merely to blow holes in the ground with shells. Surprising, since 80% of the rounds fired by the British field artillery before 1800 were iron balls, and they were, contrary to this movie, fired AT the enemy, not at the ground in front of them.
* The pistols used frequently by a number of characters would, in reality, not have any chance of a hit past a range of about 20 feet. Not only were pistols smoothbore, they had an impossibly short barrel, and the image of the British Dragoon Colonel taking careful aim, barrel resting on his arm, sniping a fleeing militiaman is purely Hollywood.
I won't mention the Nazi-like atrocities committed by the would-be Gentlemen of the Dragoons.
Steele