According to the old-style Hollywood dramatic logic that governs Patriot , Isaacs must die. Make that how long. After Patriot passed the two-hour mark, I wanted Gibson to finish the job. Brought to us by Roland Emmerich, the German-bred director who went Hollywood in the biggest possible way with Independence Day and Godzilla , Patriot is a long, mushy movie that tells more about what many of us want to believe about America than what America was actually like in 1776. It's bursting with big, strapping boys itching to fight, and fiery-eyed women who shame their laggard men.
People often speak in speeches rather than in conversation.
Good guys die in slo-mo, every agonized line on a face sculpted with a nobility suitable for Mount Rushmore. Then switch on the emotional cues from John Williams' score, soaring like an eagle borne on gusts of hot air. At times, Patriot is the ultimate men's movement movie. It seems to say that it's OK to hack and chop your enemy to death with your bare hands, until your face is painted as red as the god of war. Adrenaline is a hard thing to stop.