The Propagandist

Rating: 1/10 (6 April 2006)

..."Braveheart" take two could be an alternative title. But really, "The Propagandist" would be most apt, since this laughable "history" is some of the most virulent Anglophobic claptrap I have ever seen. All the blatant inaccuracy of Revere's famous Boston Massacre engraving seems to be the approach, i.e., forget the facts, just hate the Brits! I couldn't decide if the cartoon characters shown as the Brits were more one-dimensionally stupid or one-dimensionally bloodthirsty. Oops! Maybe I've missed some unexpected character development in a Gibson flick - the Brits really were two-dimensional: stupid AND bloodthirsty.
And gee, what a "good massuh" Gibson's character was to his slaves - they all loved him. Kind of makes you want to be a slave and wonder what all that abolitionist nonsense was about! Can anyone even begin to believe how mangled the facts are in this mess of a film? Turning regular British soldiers into incessant civilian-murdering thugs may have been what one would expect of a period propagandist like Paul Revere, but surely we ought to expect a bit more truth and enlightened approach these days. And the watering down of the hateful institution of slavery, practiced by these "patriots", just sidesteps an historical dilemma we Amercians ought to be coming to grips with some day.
I am also very tired of the untruthful clichés in supposed historical films, and I thought the American public would be too at this point. What is really disappointing to me is that some of my countrymen are so sheepishly jingoistic that they'll get caught up in this "hooray for the red white and blue" mentality and like this film, despite what trash it really is.
For example, if these film makers had made a brand new Western showing the old clichés - the peaceful, civilized, settlers getting massacred by the savage, bloodthirsty Indians - the film would have been hooted out of the theater. But somehow, because it is so "patriotic" to support the American revolution, and fashionable in some quarters to think badly of the Brits, we accept the same level of outrageously untruthful clichés in this film.
I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone who would prefer some small level of truth in their so-called historical films. It is such a fairy tale, they should have thrown in the troll under the bridge.