The Patriot NOT disgraceful *SPOILERS*

Rating: Null/10 (24 April 2003)

The Patriot is full of American History. This is one of my favorite movies, and it is wrong to say Mel Gibson was disgracing the American citizen. The character Benjamin Martin never actually lived, however, he is a combination of several real life American Revolutionary heros. These include General Francis Marion 'The Swamp Fox', and two other gentlemen, whose names I presently cannot remember.
"Tinkering with the notions of democratic self-determinism and collective deliberation is something else, especially when replaced by personal, uncontrolled vigilantism."
Obviously sir, you are not a student of history, so do NOT attempt to explain to people what you don't know in the first place! Just because you an articulate MIT alumni does not mean you know anything about history.
"It was fine in Braveheart to just make things up -- that was a mythical time and a relatively magical place."
I hope you are trying to be satirical, because you can't possibly be serious when saying something like this. From what I can gather, you find Mel Gibson's portrayal of William Wallace to be some stroybook fantasy made up by the writers and producers of Braveheart. Again, do NOT comment on what you do not know. William Wallace is one of Scotland's greatest heros. He lead a rag-tag Army against the might and power of the English War Juggernaut. Although the Battles of Stirling and Edinburgh were true, Mel Gibson's portrayal of them were in fact fictitious, but William Wallace was most certainly real.
I would like to end by saying that The Patriot is one of the best movies ever made, and the only major differences between real history and hollywood was that (1) Col. Tarelton (not Tavington as it was in the movie) was far more crueler than the movie portrays him as. (2) In the Battle of Camden, the British had deployed Heavy Artillery which was firing on the Colonials, actually Heavy Artillery is immobile and cannot be moved into the field. (3) Just the fact that Bejamin Martin never lived, but the character was based on three real-life men.