Ultra terrible

Rating: 1/10 (9 April 2009)

What does Mel Gibson have against the English? He made the awful Braveheart and he ends up doing this trash which is Braveheart 2 in all but name. What does Hollywood have against the British? It's not like we have been America's biggest ally since the Second World War and in a recently CNN poll 90% of Americans have a favourable opinion of Britain.
The Patriot focuses on Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson), a veteran of the French-Indian war. He lived in South Carolina in 1776 with his 7 children, working on his farm, with his black employees (first problem there). His wife had recently died and he just wants to live a peaceful life raising his family. In the State Assembly Benjamin even votes against joining the revolution. However his 18-year-old son Gabriel (Heath Ledger) decides to join the Contiential Army, but suffers defeat. The film fast forwards 2 years. Gabriel has become a messenger and given important document. Outside the Martin's farm was a skirmish between the Americans and British and Gabriel returns home. After the battle Benjamin cares for both the British and American troops, a British officer even thanks him. However Colonel William Tavington (Jason Issacs) shows up on the scene. He orders the Americans to be killed, burns down Martin's home, takes all the black workers so that they could be forced into the British army and takes Gabriel to be hung as a spy. It was during this that one of Benjamin's other sons, Thomas, gets killed, trying to free Gabriel. Its all these events that drives Benjamin to fight in the war, firstly freeing his son and ends up as the Colenial of the South Carlonia Milita. He fights a guerrilla war and becomes known as the Ghost. This leads to a battle of wits between Benjamin and Tavington/General Cornwallis (Tom Wilkingson). There are subplots, the father-son relationship and Benjamin's need to be a good father. There is Gabriel's love life. The recruitment of troops and the friendship between a slave and a racist.
This film is truly terrible. I hate historical inaccuracies in film and like Braveheart, the Patriot takes the Mick. The British never launched a massive terror campaign against civilians, let alone burn down a church full of a whole village. That was based on a Waffen SS attack in France, not 18th century America. During the war civilians were largely unaffected. Most slaves and Native American fought with the British. Native American got better trading deals with the British, whilst for slaves the British promise them freedom, whilst the Americans didn't. Also, for a film set in South Carolina in the end of the 18th Century they was little racism, a lot of tolerance and slaves seem happy with their work. The film erodes the ideas of the American War of Independence. The Americans fought for ideas of democracy and taxation, but this was ignored during the film, forcing on a one man struggle. Americans argued that the war was fought that because of the famous saying, 'no taxation without representation'; despite the fact that most British people didn't have the right to vote and the same for Americans in their state assemblies. The British argued that the Americans should have paid tax because they were in charge of their defend, especially during the French-Indian war. The British weren't evil during this war. The film made out that it was only just middle-class English soldiers, ignoring that there were Scottish and Irish troops in the British army. Also, one of the reason why Americans were angry with the British was because there was a large number of German troops in the British army. Also the main reason why American won independence was from support from France, Spain and the Netherlands, and they fought for their own self-interests against Britain, not because they believed in the American cause.
Like Braveheart, the British were made out to be as stupid and as event as possible, not fighting with honour. Tavington is a clear example of evil whilst Cornwallis was rather stupid, getting tricked easily, e.g. the scene of the prisoner exchange and his dogs surprising disloyalty. In real life Cornwallis was a perfectly capable commander of troops and the British army was a small, but professional force. The acting was wooden, Heath Ledger was terrible (which is surprising because of his later good work). Mel Gibson had his moments but he was nothing surprise for most of the film. Jason Issacc was cartoon character (he's better in the Harry Potter films) and Tom Wilkington was the strongest performance. No one stood out, and I find it weird that there was talk that Issacc could have had an Oscar nod for this film. The people of Liverpool were insulted with the character of Tavington insulting. Tavington was based on Banastre Tarleton who was Liverpool's MP for a while and supported Charles James Fox who supported the Americans during the War of Independence. At the same time Benjamin Martin was based on Francis Marion. Francis Marion was a man who enjoyed scaling natives. One scene in the film shows Benjamin giving his young sons rifles, and gets them to attack British soldiers: that's fatherly love for you. It is so bloody stupid a scene.
For some reason Roland Emmerich enjoyed using slow motion during the film, especially for the fight scene: it add nothing. The other problem is for some reason set piece one-on-one fights easily happened during the middle of battle: a little unrealistic. The only good aspect of the film is the realistic violence; with an excellent moment with a soldier getting his head torn off by a cannonball. But even here, it surprising how accuracy 18th Century rifles were.
The writing in the film is bad, the same level of Randall Wallace. He turned the American War of Independence into a one family struggle.
Films like this need to be stopped being made.