It seems that movie trailers are getting more and more explicit, and The Patriot is no exception. If you own a TV or have been to the movies lately, you already know the basic premise. I'll just cut to the chase and tell you what you can't learn via the trailers. Gibson plays Benjamin Martin, a landowner, father, widower, and former war-hero. He's got a bunch of pretty kids, the hots for his dead wife's sister, and a nice house.
Life is good, until that damn war with the British starts fouling things up on the homefront.
Mel Gibson kicking Brit ass, all in the name of freedom. Benjamin Martin comes across as a much more reluctant hero than did William Wallace - a man who has seen the horrors of war and is in no great hurry to revisit them. Also, he's got that passel of kids to worry about, thus denying him that delicious nihilistic sense of revenge that colored all of Wallace's actions in Braveheart . Having said that, though, I must admit, when Martin rides into General Cornwallis' camp under the flag of truce, I was waiting for him to whip out a mace in sweet slow motion and start doling out a little blunt force trauma. Heath Ledger, who plays Gibson's eldest son, is getting a lot of publicity off of this film.