Imagine if you will...

Rating: Null/10 (28 January 2001)

Ok. Switch some actors around. Imagine Mel Gibson's character being played by Walter Matthau and Heath Ledger's character played by the really nerdy nosepicking looking person who sat behind you in English class at school. Can't see much of a hit eh? That about summarizes it. It's an excuse to tug women's heartstrings while watching Mel "Ohhhhh Mel" get kungfu on Redcoat arse while displaying the modestly silly Heath Ledger so teen girls everywhere can swoon. This film doesn't lend itself to anything new. In fact, if Colonel Benjamin "the GHOST DUM DUm dum" Martin's character had been reincarnated 200 hundred years later-his new name would be RAMBO!!! Yeah he can take out whole squadrons of brittish soldiers behind the cover of trees. Yes, he takes his 8 year old sons with him, and they survive while cleaning the floor of all the bad guys. Yes, he apparently has secret state-of-the-art rapid fire rifles, which he shoots and reloads with insanely fast speed for the time period and the weapons he was using. And the silliest part is that the writer manipulated the audience very unsubtly by including scenes where the Torries run around raping, pilaging, and unremorsefully killing any colonists they can find. Therefore, we have to clearly know that the enemy must be the British, and Benjamin Martin must kick their a**, because then the audience could get their money's worth of satisfaction. Blah! Show the viewers something that surprises us. The Patriot wasn't at all surprising.