The Patriot Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
What would you do if they destroyed your home, threatened your family. Where would you draw the line?
Before they were soldiers, they were family. Before they were legends, they were heros. Before there was a nation, there was a fight for freedom.
Some things are worth fighting for.
The movie takes place in South Carolina in 1776. Benjamin Martin, a French-Indian war hero who is haunted by his past, is a patriot who wants no part in a war with Britian. Meanwhile, his two eldest sons, Gabriel and Thomas, can't wait to go out and kill some Redcoats. When South Carolina decides to go to war with Britain, Gabriel immediatly signs up to fight...without his father's permission. But soon, Colonel Tavington, British solder infamous for his brutal tactiks, captures Gabriel and sentences him to be hanged. As Gabriel is taken away, Thomas tries to free him, only to be killed by Tavington, in front of Benjamin. Now, seeking revenge for his son's death, Benjamin leaves behind his 5 other children to bring independence to the 13 colonies.
| Mel Gibson | Benjamin Martin |
| Heath Ledger | Gabriel Martin |
| Joely Richardson | Charlotte Selton |
| Jason Isaacs | Col. William Tavington |
| Chris Cooper | Col. Harry Burwell |
| Tchéky Karyo | Jean Villeneuve |
| Rene Auberjonois | Reverend Oliver |
| Lisa Brenner | Anne Howard |
| Tom Wilkinson | Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis |
| Donal Logue | Dan Scott |
| Leon Rippy | John Billings |
| Adam Baldwin | Capt. Wilkins |
| Jay Arlen Jones | Occam |
| Joey D. Vieira | Peter Howard |
| Gregory Smith | Thomas Martin |
| Roland Emmerich |
6.70 out of 10 (43528 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Best Action/Adventure Movie of the Year
posted on 18 Aug 2009Move over gladiator, The Patriot is the best action movie for 2000. And being movie based on the War of Independence makes it all the more stirring for Americans. I have read that it is not historically accurate except in the broadest sense (We won the British went home). But that is okay.
Private Ryan was fictional as well, no one complained about that.Also the critics say that the person Mel Gibson's character was based on was a cruel savage beast of a man. Well Mel Gibson's character is very savage, although he has been PC'ed a bit to make it more appealing.Those minor points aside this is an awesome movie. The battle scenes are frighteningly real. Brutal and graphic. And the acting in those scenes was amazing. The sense of fear at standing on the front line was incredibly palpable, as well as the resolution to stand ground.If you only see one movie, and aren't afraid of graphic battle scenes, you must see this movie.
It is not the best or worst
posted on 18 Aug 2009What exactly is "The Patriot"? It's about Benjamin Martin and his love for his family, but it evolves into something much more than that. (Possible spoilers)-The movie could have been a lot shorter in a sense, but if you look at each individual scene, then it shouldn't have been shorter. This movie started out great, absolutely great. You had a great impression of his family. This movie, on some points, focuses a lot on his family. The villain was developed in a good way, although some of the "crimes" he committed were not very historically accurate. The Red Coats were made too villanous. I do not know why, but i went in for a Gladiator/Braveheart movie but this is not one. If you want more historically accurate information go see my favorite movie Gladiator. If you want drama in a more classical sense, rent or buy Braveheart. This movie is worth seeing, but it was, naturally, TOO AMERICAN. (spoiler?) The final battle scene is beautiful except for the man on man one.
This is the Best movie of 2000, so far!
posted on 18 Aug 2009If you like war movies, Mel Gibson, and/or fight scenes you'll love this film! Mel Gibson was excellent! The fight scenes are better than the scenes in the other 2000 action blockbuster, The Gladiator. The fight scenes are more realistic in The Patriot as opposed to virtual in The Gladiator. I definitely recommend this film.
Good for one viewing only
posted on 12 Aug 2009Entertaining enough, with a wicked villain to really tweak youremotion buttons. But the most vivid memory I had was of the"happy interlude" when our heroes reunited with their loved onesat the village and Heath Ledger decided, "Heck, we may be at war -but I still wanna get married!". Perfect setup for the tragedy thatfollows soon after (ahem, the burning church... newly weddedbride included.)I won't be watching this again on DVD anytime soon.
Better than you would expect
posted on 10 Aug 2009I went into the cinema expecting a typical action hero movie, by big shot film makers. What I got was an unexceptionable excellent film. This is Emmerich's and Devlin's best production so far. Now I'm British and its my country thats the villain but I believe the Patriot handles it well and get the story of Independence across well. However there was a shortage of black slaves in the film which i believe the movie turns a blind eye to. Nonetheless great direction and a perfectly casted strong lead, with a fantastic supporting cast makes this a winner for the ages!
some nice pictures, but what a slimy story!
posted on 06 Aug 2009The trouble with this movie is that it has been directed by a non-US director who exaggeratedly tries to chum up with Americans in order to make big money. Hopefully, he will not earn other credit than that. The movie lacks historical precision and puts the English in an almost Nazi-like role. Well, I know how it feels like to watch expensive movies which draw a black-and-white picture, where all your ancestors are on the black side. Still, the first one and a half hours are mostly entertaining and have some fairly enjoyable scenes, which even seem to stick to historical detail. But the end of the movie could have been placed at least half an hour earlier, for every bit of the story was very clear after the first hour of the film. I give some points for the juicy gore effects, but after all only 5/10 in total.
Identity crisis
posted on 02 Aug 2009The Patriot has been described, rather prematurely, as an american Braveheart. While The Patriot is nothing like Braveheart, it is still far from the greatness of that movie. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad movie, just flawed in two very annoying story elements. The first is death.
I won't say who dies, but there are a lot of key characters killed off. So many, in fact, that I stopped caring after a while. The other problem is the biggie. The filmmakers, apparantly, couldn't figure out what type of movie they wanted to make. There are revenge movies, like Gladiator. There are movies about wars, like Saving Private Ryan. The Patriot seems to want to be both of these movies at the same time. The lead character vows revenge on a british soldier. This is a movie on its own. However, they try to place american history in very inconvenient places. I couldn't figure out if the movie was made to show Mel Gibson's character, or to give an insight into the American Revolution.The Patriot isn't that bad though, and it has its strong points. Mel Gibson gives another stunning performance as our hero. He seems to posses the same drive that allowed him to play William Wallace. Heath Ledger shows that he is ready for the spotlight with his role as the rebellious son. Jason Isaacs is one of the best villains in a year with all kinds of great villains, such as Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, and the storm in The Perfect Storm. The Patriot is a three star movie, which is too bad. It had some great potential.
Disgraceful propaganda and a gross distortion of history.
posted on 02 Aug 2009This disgraceful propaganda and a gross distortion of history is a shame on those involved. They must know better than to spoon feed a US audience with the lies and distortions they seem to want to believe. Such a film can only put a strain on US-Anglo relations. What purpose can such lies serve but to make ignorant people feel good about a history that in reality is only a fiction. Shame, shame and shame on you all.
Inspired
posted on 31 Jul 2009Beautifully filmed, with so much attention to detail. Some criticize it as playing around too much with the facts, but I think it is a good balance of storytelling within a historical context. If some of the characters seem too good or too evil, it was done to engage the emotions. I thoroughly enjoyed the casting, the sets and the sheer physical authenticity of it. I came away from the movie feeling as if I had traveled back in time.
Don't waste 3 hours of your life!
posted on 31 Jul 2009It's not the anti-english sentiment that annoys me, I'm welsh I could teach Mel Gibson a thing or two about it. What I found far more insulting was the PC treatment of the black characters. A South Carolina land owner having freed his slaves in 1776? I think not! 1876 maybe just about. This major annoyance only served to make an appallingly cliched piece of tripe even more unwatchable than it already was. Technically it's not bad, the settings are excellent the camera work and directing adequate. I've seen worse acting although I have seen an awful lot better as well. No what ruins this film is it's holier than thou cliched dialogue. Sadly it's very rare for a good script to come out of Hollywood these days. Sadder still is the fact that there is no 0 score on IMDB. The Patriot doesn't even deserve to score that highly. Rent Glory instead, ok so it's a civil war movie but the battles (the only good bit in the Patriot) are as good, the script is much better and it might just give you a better idea about how blacks were treated by the USA about 100 years later.
Dramatic
posted on 23 Jul 2009I don't like violence, and this movie had lots of it and some gruesome scenes, but the story was more than just about a war, it was about a family, individual lives of very human people who fought for their country. I don't think all the British were so brutal during the war, and I can see why some people would be offended at the portrayal of the cruel Tavington and other British. There were cruel people on both sides of the war, I'm sure (Tavington was the most cruel in the movie, though).Overall, I thought the movie was very dramatic and riveting, with good acting and suspenseful moments and emotional moments (yes, I was crying).
It would have been even more emotional (and too gruesome) seeing it on a big screen. I wouldn't recommend it to young children.The little girls on the movie were cute. The young girl who played Susan was a good actress, and the scene where she finally cried "Papa!" and ran to him was very emotional.It's a powerful movie, showing war in all it's awful reality and the families that were separated by it.
I did not like the film because it was very cruel and full of American propaganda.
posted on 19 Jul 2009I did not like the film because it was very cruel and full of American propaganda. I expected to see more about American revolution without focusing too much on the story of a man who had many psychological problems and you could not realize if he was killing the enemies for his country or for his pleasure. I regarded it as a propagandistic film which only Americans could see it with pleasure. Mel Gibson tries to do his job well,as in Braveheart, but scenario is most important in such films.
Entertaining
posted on 17 Jul 2009The Patriot is a movie that takes place during the Revolutionary war. This movie is about Col. Benjamin Martin's (Mel Gibson) son and his fighting in the revolutionary war. This movie is a very entertaining movie. The things that happen in it get you more and more involved. This movie also had terrific battle seines. I think that they did a great job of making the battle seines look like they were really in the revolutionary time period. This is a great movie and a must see.
Excellent historical reconstruction, 'cinematic' as I like it.
posted on 15 Jul 2009Emotion and empathy for a story that's not so indulgent toward the 'ideal hero', describe my feeling after I saw yesterday,in a sold out multiplex hosting the Italian premiere,"The Patriot" .I liked the accuracy of the historical battle reconstruction and the portrait of a normal hero doing immoral things in order to survive....I saw war as bad as it deserve to be described and fatherly emotion acted properly by Mel Gibson.
overblown and overrated
posted on 11 Jul 2009Mel Gibson, Chris Cooper, and Tom Wilkinson are great actors, but too many clichés and a heavy sentimentality keep The Patriot from being a good movie.Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson), a plantation owner and hero of the French-Indian War, is pulled into the War of Independence when the British, led by the goon Col. Tavington, threaten his family, kill one of his sons, and burn down his home. Col. Tavington is a villain more fit for a Batman movie than a historical drama. He spends most of his time killing civilians and gives speeches before his fights, sort of like the folks on WWF.The movie is too long, and one of the movie's sub-plots, a romance between Martin's son Gabriel and a local girl, made me cringe. Especially unbelievable was a wedding scene in a village of ex-slaves that felt like a remake of the Ewok's victory party at the end of Return of the Jedi.Director Roland Emmerlich has no problem delivering a movie with great special effects and realistic battle scenes. Too bad he can't keep his movies from being corny.
Entertaining, but ultimately unbalanced and unsatisfying.
posted on 11 Jul 2009I had fairly high hopes prior to watching this movie for the first time. I actually enjoy 'period' films, and American history is a particular favorite.So I was very disappointed with "The Patriot". I felt that the director simply overlaid a generic story onto the Revolutionary War theme, and did so in a very unbalanced, black and white manner. I don't want to restate the many views already expressed, so I'll just say that my main objection to this film, was the way it assumes the viewing public are all simpletons. For example, why was it necessary for the director to bludgeon us with his obvious bias against the British in this film? I mean, how many atrocities did he require Col.Tavington to commit before he ensured that everyone in the audience was baying for British blood? Come on Mr Emmerich, haven't you ever heard of subtlety?Apart from the black and white nature of the whole picture, there were far too many totally unrealistic scenes. Are we really to believe that Benjamin Martin and his two young boys could so easily despatch an entire company of British soldiers?What a shame that what could (and should have) been a balanced, stirring narrative on an important period of America's history, was ultimately reduced to such formulaic Hollywood fluff. I sincerely hope that another studio/director revisits the topic, and does it right. As always, I suppose it all comes down to making a film that will score big at the box office, versus making a film that will actually mean something long after the movie posters for it have been torn down. If you like American period films, give "Dances with Wolves" a go - it's far superior!6/10
What a bloody movie.
posted on 11 Jul 2009***Starring: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, and Chris Cooper.A father is brought toward the Revolutionary War when his son is captured and another one of his sons is murdered. The man must get his son back and get revenge on the brutal man who killed his son.This is one gory movie. I mean seriously gory. It is over the top.The movie is a great and well-acted film that lost one 1/2 star for its brutality.
History in the (re)making
posted on 05 Jul 2009It would be interesting how US reaction would be if the Chinese film industry produced a film concerning the Vietnam war back in the late 60s.But to add some "drama" they showed typical GIs viciously slaughtering women & children, torturing them,raping them etc.
With the film in the can and winning hearty approval to a Chinese audience it was then given to a US distributer.Question 1. Will the distributer have the nerve to show it?Question 2. Will the US audience regard it in the same manner & grace as the Patriot (which is, after all only a dramatised Movie according to Gibson, but he would say that wouldn't he)?Question 3. Will there be outrage by the US Gov. and public alike against those "dirty Commies" and their blatant rewriting of scenes that probably never happened?I saw The Patriot, and it is by and large a good film of America's fight for Independance. But what marred it was the zealous direction with regards black slaves & of course the Brits. Every successful nation has its skeletons in cupboards, and Britain certainly has its fair share, but I'm pretty sure the scenes depicted so generally in this movie never happened in real life.Having read many historical books on the British Empire & American Independence over the last few years the conflict was fought in a civil manner with American tactical supremacy & individual courage winning the War from a rather overstretched Brit Army and a tactically weak HQ. But no where did I come across any transcripts from US soldiers or civillians with regards brutal British tactics or happy slaves!An average film that could have been truly great had it not had to resort to xenophobia & over dramatising.**/*****
A long film which may play with one's emotions at times, but for no good reason
posted on 03 Jul 2009Since this 2000 film features Mel Gibson in the starring role, and is set long ago in a time of war, with Gibson's character fighting against the English, it's obviously hard not to compare it to the 1995 blockbuster, "Braveheart". However, Gibson also directed and co-produced that film, whereas his only part in "The Patriot" was the starring role. Anyway, I learned lot about this movie, reading both praise and criticism, before I rented it just yesterday. From what I had read about it, I could have been reasonably impressed, I could have been somewhat disgusted, but for me, it turned out to be somewhere in between.Set in South Carolina in 1776, during the American Revolution, Benjamin Martin was a hero in the French and Indian War, and now lives as a farmer. He is still deeply tormented by some of his actions during his past experience in battle, and wants nothing to do with the war against Britain. When South Carolina enters the war, Benjamin's eldest son, Gabriel, quickly signs up to participate, without his father's approval. However, Gabriel eventually returns home wounded one night, and soon after this, the cruel Colonel William Tavington, from the British side, captures him and plans to have him hanged! When Thomas, another son of Benjamin, tries to free his brother, he is soon killed, and the house is burned down by British forces! After this, Benjamin finally decides to join the fight against the British, leading a militia into battle for the sake of his country.One thing many people bash this movie for is historical inaccuracy, saying the vast majority of it is fiction. I'm no history buff, but I can believe that. It seems clear that it's filled with fictional characters, including our hero. However, I tend to find that any film I see based on historical events, no matter how popular it is, I'm bound to learn about significant use of fiction in it, so that's not my main complaint. What are my main complaints? Well, first of all, the beginning seems a tad sudden, and probably could have used more of an opening narration to introduce the characters and setting. Those who watch it with no clue what the story is about beforehand could easily find themselves lost around the beginning. Before I watched the film, I read about it being very one-sided, and that's definitely true. Basically, the story is saints vs. savages. I'm sure a lot of brutality came from the British side, but that doesn't mean every single one of them was equally bad and nobody who fought on the American side ever did anything wrong. When historical films are made, inaccuracy seems inevitable, but when the story is this simple, it can be a problem. I did find tension in this film, and some parts are supposed to be moving, but I didn't find them as much so as they're supposed to be, such as Benjamin's youngest daughter, Susan, suddenly begging him not to go as he's leaving to fight, after hating him and refusing to talk to him. Scenes like this seem thrown in just to play with one's emotions, without much effort. I guess another example of this is a scene where British forces lock innocent townspeople in a church and burn it down, which apparently didn't actually happen. The Nazis did this in World War II, but if such an event didn't take place during the American Revolution, then the church-burning scene in this movie is useless. Yes, it may bring out emotions in viewers, but what for? I will also point out that the film is long at over 2 1/2 hours, and may drag at times, an example being the tedious battle sequence towards the end.I certainly can't exactly say I was bored the entire time when I watched "The Patriot", with quite a bit of tension and perhaps some mildly heart-wrenching moments, but overall, I found the feelings the film gave me to be worthless, as it was probably just trying to get the best of me. Also, late in the film, although it may have been hard to turn it off early, for me it was like, "When is this going to end?" I knew why some have been absolutely revolted by this action blockbuster before I saw it, and after seeing it, I'm not part of that crowd (I'm pretty much indifferent to the film, I guess), but I can understand the points of these people, and I guess I can understand the praise for it as well (after all, much worse has been done). If you want a long melodrama, "The Patriot" might do, but if you want a deep story with moments that could stir your emotions for a good reason, you could feel cheated by this film.
a moving and a heroic movie
posted on 20 Aug 2009don't be surprised if you felt some chills when u see the american flag in this movie.... nice to see big budgets used to make heroic and moving movies unlike other action stupid movies. mel gibson shines as the leading actor in this movie,also heath ledger delievered a very good role as mel's son in the movie. the movie is a littile bit long,but the action and drama can fill completely the 3 hrs you wasted,you will feel sad,happy,proud,and entertained.