"It's a free country, or at least it will be."

Rating: 8/10 (20 April 2019)

All the while, Mel Gibson's character Benjamin Martin kept reminding me of the historical Francis Marion, more colloquially known as The Swamp Fox during the American Revolution. He operated guerilla style in South Carolina which is this picture's location for the most part, so I was surprised to see only one review mentioning it out of about twenty or so I read before starting here on mine. With the torching of Southern homes and plantations throughout the story, this had the feel of a Civil War movie more than the Revolution, but the brilliant red uniforms of the British kept bringing things back into perspective. Historical inaccuracies aside, the movie is decidedly adventurous with Gibson's character focused in equal parts on revenge and a patriotic cause. The British are portrayed as almost one-sidedly vicious murderers, although if you listen to Benjamin Martin's description of the part he played in the Fort Wilderness campaign, you'll realize that the pendulum swings both ways in time of war when man's humanity is pushed to the brink. With Gibson's prior involvement in 1995's "Braveheart", the comparisons between the two movies are almost to be expected, but at least for my money, I wouldn't have bet on a repeat of the victorious American forces mooning the British in their final consequential battle.