A great film about the war for the American Independence

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2004)

I feel this film lives up to its expectations in all aspects. It carries foreword a story in the same manner as Gettysburg, Gods and Generals, Glory and some of the other 90s and later films about wars to safeguard American Independence. While it may be "fashionable" nowadays to bash Commanders and Presidents who have led these battles for American independence, I will take no part of it. It shows that war is not always gallant and pretty and achieves this with a measure of realism in the way Hollywood has chosen to depict. Thankfully it does not have scores of scenes with tremendous explosions possible only with large amounts of gasoline, explosives and pyrotechnics not a part of any conflagration achieved in war. I guess some can be entertained only with such overkill, as evidenced by the large number of films achieving box office success nowdays with that requirement being met. In my opinion, too few films exist about the American wars of Independence. Mel Gibson's performance gets a 10/10 on this one. Since I have it on disk, I am sure I will enjoy it many times, along with aforementioned films.