The Patriot
Year: 2000
Rating: R
Length: 165 minutes / 2.75 hours
Over the years, I’ve seen most of The Patriot (2000). Having now purposely sat through the entire thing (and the Extended Cut, no less), I can see parts of its appeal. Now, I’m not going to watch a Roland Emmerich movie for any kind of historical accuracy. That Emmerich set The Patriot during the Revolutionary War is merely a backdrop for over-the-top action sequences. Some of its political statements are cringeworthy now, but there’s an amount of entertainment here that is hard to ignore. And that’s what this movie is: entertainment.
The star power in The Patriot is hard to ignore. Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Jason Isaacs, Chris Cooper, and Tom Wilkinson all deliver outstanding performances. In particular, the “win at all costs” Colonel William Tavington (Jason Isaacs) was a great motivator and foil for Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) to avenge the losses he endured during the film. This subplot comes off as ridiculous in a historical film but works well for an action film. Fortunately, there are moments of humor to offset the brutal violence that runs throughout.
However, with a film made with the hindsight of future historic events, there are several scenes that mostly just made me roll my eyes. While I’m sure there were individuals from the south who shared sentiments that were more in line with their northern countrymen, the whole “we solved racism!” segments are so corny as to detract from the movie as a whole. But again, there are a ton of tropes that would not be forgiven for a purely historical film but can mostly be shrugged off in the context of this action movie.
A Roland Emmerich action movie set in a historical time period, I give The Patriot 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
