Just because it's long, doesn't mean it's bad!

Rating: 8/10 (27 July 2001)

Sometimes I think that Hollywood critics suffer from the "too much success" syndrome. No one typifies suffering at the hands of this syndrome better than Mel Gibson. (The syndrome goes something like this: "Hey, Mel's had a couple of hits in a row; time to bring him back to earth and pan the next one.") You see, Mel had enjoyed three reasonably successful performances in a row - Conspiracy Theory, Lethal Weapon 4, and Payback (plus his delightful voice-over character in Chicken Run.) So, following the syndrome, the next big movie HAD to be a dud. Out came "The Patriot," and sure enough - critics generally cut it to pieces. Not me. It's a bit over-long and could have stood up to ten or fifteen minutes worth of trimming. It was only tagentally historically accurate; but for gosh sakes, this is the movies, not the History Channel. Who cares? Finally, there's the take that Gibson was indulging himself with the character and side-stories about 'what happened at Fort Wilderness.' But to me, it was that 'side-story' that made the whole movie richer and his character more interesting! The conflict between father and son, made sense thanks to that aspect of Gibson's character. Without it, we would have had another historical bollix worthy only of running on cable's also-rans. Gibson and virtually the whole cast gave solid performances; the direction (particularly of the towns and villages) was superb, and set decoration fascinatingly accurate and rich. No, this is not a five-star movie; but it captures some essence of the time very well, and the plot generally keeps moving at a good speed, bogging only a couple of times, and then briefly. Of course, we're still begging the question of whether you like historical movies; but if you do, give it a chance. I think it'll grow on you.