The Patriot

DIRECTOR: Roland Emmerich

CAST: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs, Chris Cooper, Lisa Brenner, Tom Wilkinson, Tcheky Karyo, Rene Auberjonois, Donal Logue, Adam Baldwin, Gregory Smith

REVIEW: The Patriot, one of the few films set during the American Revolution, ironically by a German director, Roland Emmerich, is both a sweeping Revolutionary War epic and the personal saga of a father and reluctant warrior. While not without faults, it overcomes them with strong assets including a powerful performance from Mel Gibson, vivid battle sequences, and beautiful cinematography by Caleb Deschanel.

South Carolina, 1776: As war looms against England over taxation without representation, widowed farmer Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) wants no part of it. He's a single parent with a passle of kids and dreads what could happen if war comes home. His unwillingness to support the war effort puts him at odds with his zealously patriotic eldest sons Gabriel (Heath Ledger) and Thomas (Gregory Smith). Mention is also made time and again of Martin's mysterious past deeds- or misdeeds- at Fort Wilderness during the French and Indian War, a secret which will come back to haunt him in ways he could not have imagined. Against Martin's hopes, Congress votes to go to war with England, and even worse, Gabriel is one of the first to enlist, against his father's wishes. As the war drags on with his eldest son at the front Martin seeks to carry on with his peaceful existence and ignore the war, until the brutal British Colonel Tavington (Jason Isaacs) brings the war home. Tavington's callous cruelty gives Martin the most compelling of motives for fighting- revenge. Seeing early on that outdated British tactics are doomed to failure, Martin draws on his previous experiences and becomes the feared guerilla leader "The Ghost", his band of "farmers with pitchforks", as described by aristocratic British General Lord Cornwallis (Tom Wilkinson) wreaking havoc on British supply lines and becoming the bane of his nemesis Tavington's existence. Martin's personal crusade is always against the backdrop of a nation's fight for freedom.

The Patriot works chiefly due to the lead performance by Mel Gibson, who is convincing as his character transforms from a passive bystander to a grimly devoted warrior whose quest for vengeance sometimes threatens to blind him to the greater cause. Ledger is also convincing as his idealistic son. Jason Isaacs makes the most of what character he is given, which isn't that much; Tavington is a one-dimensional bloodthirsty s.o.b. with no greater depth or complexity, and his wanton killing does get a little repetitive. Perhaps it would have been more effective had the filmmakers not insisted on painting things so black-and-white. Still, the coldly smirking Isaacs plays "the character you love to hate" about as well as anyone could have, and his final encounter with Martin is as exciting and satisfying as similar climaxes in Gladiator or Rob Roy.

Filling out the supporting cast are Chris Cooper as Martin's superior, Tcheky Karyo as French colonial sympathizer Jean Villeneuve, Rene Auberjonois as a preacher who joins Martin's band, Adam Baldwin as a colonial who allies himself with the British but is startled by Tavington's brutality, and Joely Richardson as Martin's dead wife's sister, who obviously carries a flame for her ex brother-in-law.

The Patriot is not without its faults. A subplot involving Gabriel's love affair with Anne Howard (Lisa Brenner) provides some incongruous comic relief, although it does set up one of the more barbaric acts along the path of destruction wreaked by Tavington in pursuit of the elusive ghost. There are a number of obvious cliches: Martin is a widower raising his children by himself, a black freeman and a racist become comrades-in-arms, and there are actually two romances. There is some corny dialogue: "it's a free country, or at least it will be", and much of the film has too much of a Hollywood feel, complete with the sinister portrayal of the British enemy (to be fair, Cornwallis is more human than Tavington, but still not exactly sympathetic). But Gibson is very good, and the battle scenes are well-done and excitingly staged. To say that it is the best film yet made about the American Revolution might not be the highest compliment; the competition is light, but I don't mean it as damning with faint praise. The Patriot may not be all that it could have been, but it's a consistently entertaining and occasionally enthralling look at a rarely portrayed part of American history.

RATING