| Written by Dogburt,
on 10-07-2000 08:00
|
Published in : Reviews, Movies |
"The Patriot," Mel Gibson's latest epic of grand proportions, visits an era of time that appears to have been neglected within the last twenty years of cinema history. Certainly war is not an unknown topic, be it the Civil War, WWI and WWII, and especially Vietnam. Maybe it's the fear of becoming a period piece and not capturing the level of size that is warranted, but to my surprise the American Revolution has simply not been a war that Hollywood has taken hold of. Which is surprising since it clearly appeals to our sense (rightly or wrongly) of ethnocentrism and, pardon the term, patriotism. I am not much of a history buff, but examining this war closely appeals to a lot of different levels of the sense of being American, including civic duty, family, religion, and the quest to fight hostile oppression. Also, based on the now global aspect of TNMC.org, I'm very interested in how this film appeals to those who were not born in the U.S.
 For Gibson to undertake such a project is commendable. (Though I must say that, only in Hollywood would the two chief protagonists in a movie about the American Revolution be portrayed by Aussies) He seems to have a definite affinity for historical dramas that are played out, from his work in Braveheart and now The Patriot (not to mention an apparent thing against England & its "oppression" against the downtrodden). Comparisons between the movies are inevitable, and while the topics and the character arc's are very different for each of the movies, the comparisons are valid, I think, on a different level. For both, revenge is a key motivator, bondage and oppression are the call to justice, and the character element of what man is capable of doing when threatened is the introspective appeal. Both movies succeed on a variety of levels, and The Patriot does a reasonably good job at portraying the forming of Revolutionary War militias that challenged the superiority of the British army. There is high drama, character development, violent portrayals of pre-modern era warfare, and justice in the end. For this, I commend the film because it does portray things on a grand, epic scale and for that the film is worth watching. Gibson does his usual good job and demonstrates good chemistry between him and his sons-likely a result from his own family. The other characters are fleshed out fairly well, and I took a guilty liking to Jason Isaacs' Colonel Tavington, who projected the same kind of putrid haughtiness that Tim Roth did in "Rob Roy," and I wish he was given more dialogue with Gibson. In the end, The Patriot does not fall flat, and at least in the theater I was in, got a round of applause in the end.
The aspect of the movie that does let us down, however, is in the Hollywood flavor that the directors decided to give it. It's a summer movie, so it's almost like they decided there must be certain summer-flick components to it to spice it up and make it appeal to a broader audience. The best way I can describe it is that the directors tried too hard to make us sympathize, and in the end it comes off as superficial cliché overkill. To compare it to Braveheart, or even Gladiator, in those films there were single acts that killed the man's sense of outward civility and awoke within them the primal urge to protect those that he cares for- the murder of the family to send the message that ultimately did not have the effect that the antagonist intended. But in Patriot, while the film starts out that way, it then continued to batter the viewer with more and more reasons to hate the enemy. The audience really only needs one that is so cold and dark that it completely defines the antagonist and there is no doubt as to their iniquity. Yet for some reason, Patriot tries to continually say, "They're bad! They're bad! They're bad!" We know...we get it. We all remember that little aspect from, oh, I don't know...FIRST GRADE...anyway...
The other big issue I had with the movie, also a typical Hollywood trait, is the superficial attempts at pulling emotion out of us. In my two comparison movies, there are no children crying for their daddy to not leave, attempts at racial reconciliation, or equal-rights feminism. Yet somehow they find their way into this film. I'm not saying that those are bad things, and they are important in calling people to arms over other injustices, but they really don't belong in this film because they aren't the central theme- they are not the point of why the war is being fought. It just seems like they were stuck in there as a transparent front to make the movie more PC and digestible, and to make sure that the audience came away with a good feeling in the end. If the film had just eliminated those few scenes which were obviously relying on cliché and simply used the Declaration of Independence as their guideline to character motivation, then the story would have been much smoother.
All in all, it was a good effort by Gibson & Co. and is definitely worth seeing, but if you like movies like this then I definitely suggest purchasing the superior films Braveheart and Gladiator.
- Dogburt
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