A good, lengthy and very entertaining movie (one spoiler)

Rating: 10/10 (8 August 2002)

The Patriot is a well balanced movie that has good amounts of drama and action. It is about a war veteran in the 1700s famous for leading an attack on the English. He regrets his actions because he sadistically cut the english soldiers to pieces. Now with the American Revolution on the rise, the veteran's life is starting to crumble as his sons are enlisting to fight and no matter how hard he tries he cannot stop them. To protect his sons' lives, he has to enlist himself and fight against the English again.
The movie is 3 hours long, and it uses these 3 hours effectively to build the characters' personalities. Mel Gibson gives a terrific performance as the moody, humorless ex-killer who is always reluctant to fight, but will fight well when the need arises. Heath Ledger is the patriotic son who has his father's fighting blood in him. Jason Isaacs is the English dragoon leader, and his voice and appearance is suitable for the devoted, power hungry antigonist. They are the main characters, and the movie spends a good deal of time showing you their personalities and how the war affects them. The battles have fantastic cinematography, and they portray the way armies fought in the most realistic, gruesome truth.
Another thing i liked about The Patriot is how masterfully done it is. If you like the movie like I did, i strongly recommend getting the DVD and listening to the audio commentary. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin provide very interesting facts on all the scenes, and as you listen you'll learn to appereciate the camera angles and various scenes which you might dismiss easily. My particular favorite was (SPOILER) how heath leadger takes out his knife after shooting Isaacs, and Emmerich says that Leadger is starting to follow in his father's footsteps as he is going to stab at Isaacs's body just like Gibson hacked the British soldier with his axe, and BOOM! Isaacs gets up stabs Ledger(END OF SPOILER).
So anyway, grab the dvd if you like the movie. I can assure you that it will be worth every cent. After listening to the commentary, I like this movie a lot more.
So overall, The Patriot combines great acting, great cast, a good story, and excellent movie making techniques to make it one of my top 10 favorite movies. The Patriot isn't your ordinary 'hero kills all the bad guys and he lives happily ever after'. It has lots of anti-cliches that makes it different. So there.