Great war movie! Even if it is historically inaccurate.

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 2006)

War movies have always been big at the box-office and movie critics alike. Something sparks our emotions when we see men battered and bruised in the bloodiest of ways. We feel deeply saddened for the main character when he loses brothers and/or friends in the war, and root for him throughout. So, how does The Patriot continue this trend while staying fresh, entertaining, and even educational? The answer to the aforementioned question is that it brings something new to the table. That new "thing" as I'm going to call it is honesty. Now, what could I possibly mean by honesty? What does being honest have anything to do with The Patriot? You see, The Patriot isn't the most historically correct movie that you might think it is. I'm no a history buff, but I do my research when going to review a movie. And, my research told me that The Patriot wasn't historically accurate. But, the director Roland Emmerich knows this, and doesn't hold it back. Yes, he keeps some aspects of the original war in the story, but he also brings the emotions with it and a well-written main character to boot! That my friends, is honesty.
Also, like I mentioned before, emotion is a major theme in this film that is characteristically heartfelt. The emotion these actors and actresses bring to the table is undeniably heartwarming and heartbreaking. This is a huge theme to pull off, and a lot of these actors aren't well known, so it had to have been hard to deal with. But, they managed to pull off an outstanding job in this category. As did Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger, because just because you're well known, doesn't mean you don't have anxiety when you're about to perform you role. That's basically having the weight of the world on your shoulders when you know everybody is depending on you.
Another theme of the film is, believe it or not, brutality. Now, when I say brutality, I don't mean "ruthless, unforgiving" brutality. I mean real-life brutality that wars can have on people. The worriment of knowing that you just might die when you're defending your country. It's all dealt with here, and in an abrupt way. There's no asinine feeling to it, just raw brutality. The realism of brutality shines here.
Another major theme is family matters. I'm talking about the family matters that we all face today. Family issues, arguments, pain, it's all here. As we go through Benjamin's life, we also meet up with his family and see how they react to his time in war. It's very visible that this family is in pain over their loss of their father. Sure, he's still alive, but his family doesn't know for sure. He's out there defending his country, he doesn't really have the time to write them a letter. Also, you can see how the kids react to this too. Especially his daughter Stephanie, who bawls her eyes out just at the thought of her daddy being away for home, maybe not to return at all. It's truly emotional. I take off my hat to this.
Now, as I mentioned before, the film is not historically accurate. There are a lot of little things that get tweaked around here in The Patriot. Such as that the French did not wear red coats in the French and Indian War. Does it matter that much? No, not really. But, for the history buffs, it could ruin a whole chunk of the film. I mean, you don?t want to see something you truly love and study be tweaked to a minority, but still have a major effect on you.
This is where the honesty I mentioned earlier in the review comes into play. The director Roland Emmerich and the cast of the film know it's not going to be the most historically accurate film of all time. So, they put that out there. They give a fair warning to all of the history buffs out there that they might not see what they expected of the film. And I admire this. This actually reminds me of the advertisements and promos for the release of the movie Doom. The Rock and the director assured everybody that the movie Doom would stay relevant to the video game. But, this proved to be false, as a huge amount of monsters were nowhere to be found, and it played more like an episode of The X-Files. This disappointed the fans of the game, and it didn?t go over too well (though, it still made millions at the box-office). Now, only if Doom would've taken notes from The Patriot's book, it might've went over well with the fans.
Overall, The Patriot is worth a watch. It's good for it's entertainment in the action section, and delivers the goods. and, if you're a history buff, you can go in knowing this film isn't going to be historically accurate, but it isn't asinine in any way shape or form. It's good quality entertainment. The acting is a measurement of perfection in this film, as is the emotional charge of what a war can do to someone and his/her family. Clocking in at three hours, it holds its head up high and gallops forward to the end with nice pacing of action and storyline. It's well worth your time, no matter who you are. No matter what you fancy!