Patriot, The [Extended Cut]

---

Tools:
Recommend review to a friend »

---

I have to admit that I was initially taken aback by the sight of Mel Gibson in a skirt. But "Braveheart" was so intensely convincing that I was soon swept up in the Scottish rebellion against English oppressors in the 13th century, with William Wallace's star-crossed efforts to lead it reminding me of "Spartacus." The pensive moments, the smoldering fires, the tragic hero whose personal struggles mirrored his people's, the individual subplots, the epic battle sequences-everything came together to make for a moving, sweeping saga.

I didn't have the same experience with "The Patriot"--even watching it in Blu-ray. Many others did, but I never got past the sense that these were actors acting in a drama that was trying awfully hard to be epic. But "The Patriot" isn't nearly as complex as "Braveheart." It may be visually sweeping, but there's a sense of smallness about it that makes the film feel more like a made-for-TV mini-series.

Despite its 175 minutes (10 of them added for this Extended Cut release, presumably such things as axes in foreheads), "The Patriot" feels like a historical shortcut, a patchwork quilt with a few homilies stitched in. Based in part on the life of Francis Marion, "The Swamp Fox," this film by Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day") features a script from Robert Rodat ("Saving Private Ryan") that seems to revert to Rodat's days of writing for television. The characters are more cardboard than we saw in "Braveheart," and the action seems as stagey as those stand-and-talk TV soapes. It's better than Disney's saga of "The Swamp Fox," which starred now-comedic actor Leslie Nielsen, but not by much.

Maybe part of the problem is the sheen of newness that everything has. The uniforms and clothing look fresh off the costume racks, and all the buildings and streets and pieces of lumber seem freshly painted and brand-spanking new. There's hardly a clue that a city like Charles Town (now Charleston, S.C.) was over a hundred years old at the time the action takes place, and that the southern colonies were struggling with embargoes the same as their northern counterparts.

Maybe part of the problem is that, as my colleague John J. Puccio observed, the characters feel like caricatures. Wealthy farmer Benjamin Martin (Gibson) has a past that prevents him from becoming a "patriot" and fighting for the future. He and others did some awful things at Fort Wilderness during the French and Indian Wars, and the engraved hatchet he keeps in a trunk is a reminder of the savagery. So his gentleman farmer is reluctant to get involved in the American Revolution. That's the extent of the complexity of the main character, and Gibson seems less able to tap into his character's essence than he was in "Braveheart." Other characters are similarly drawn, with every American colonist but Martin willing to fight (what about the Tories, folks?)-which renders a complicated political landscape as simply drawn as a child's fingerpainting. But the worst caricature is the villain. The writer and director have given us a full-blown, nasty, love-to-kill-and-maim bad guy to hate. Col. William Tavington (Jason Isaacs) is such a sneeringly awful man--one who shoots Martin's teen-aged son in the early going, and later shows no compunction whatsoever about killing women and children-that when the final battle against the forces of British Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis (Tom Wilkinson) comes, the historic moment takes a back seat to personal revenge. In 1781, when patriots cornered Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, where a French fleet was waiting to prevent the British from retreating by sea, it was a major turning point for the American Revolution that really isn't emphasized here all that much.

But that's no surprise. "The Patriot" blurs facts and reality with no apparent conscience. Martin is like The Swamp Fox insomuch as he and his men ride into the swamps and have their encampment there. But while the real Swamp Fox and his men were guerillas who ambushed the Redcoats and then hightailed it back to the swamps to hide, the swamps simply serve as a headquarters for a group of state militia who fight alongside Army regulars in those straight military lines that were common back then. Though Martin advocates non-conventional warfare, he seems way too willing to take his men and fight in ranks, without trying to convince the leaders that other methods might work better. It's also a bit much that Martin took the pouch of lead soldiers that belonged to his murdered son and used them, one by one, to melt down into musket and pistol balls--with one, of course, saved like, like a silver bullet, for dealing with that villainous officer who killed the boy.

---

---