it's a package meal

Rating: Null/10 (8 August 2000)

Watching "The Patriot" is like eating a package meal. There's everything you could want, but nothing done with discreet detail. Want action? Bloody battle scenes by the ton. Want gore? Cannonballs decapitate soldiers and take out a few limbs here and there. Want humor? What about foppy Brit villains and falling-apart rocking chairs? Want family values? What about a tender father-son relationship and a subplot about Benjamin Martin's estrangement from his daughter? Want romance? what about Ben and his sister-in-law and Gabriel and Anne?
The film overall is two rungs below "Gladiator" in the period action piece catergory, but there's enough bloody fun. The performances are also fine all around, Gibson again gives his character turns of both "family man" and "battlefield maniac", Heath is a good-enough son, and Jason Isaacs is one of those sneering piles of evil you just love to hate. The battle scenes are highly watchable, even if the flag-waving bravado of Gibson at the end is slightly hilarious.
All in all, not exactly the summer's best action picture but a highly entertaining romp.
Rating: 68/100