A ‘Patriot’ With A Mean Streak

Election Day is just around the corner, and with its fast approach we are hearing much about American duty and responsibility to exercise one’s right to vote. To get in tune with that sensibility and remain in a red-white-and-blue mood, this week’s column is focused on the video release of The Patriot. Poised to be a big hit over the summer when it was released around the Fourth of July holiday, The Patriot actually underachieved just a bit (though approximately $100 million at the box office does not make it a flop by any means) because it took a second seat to the more popular The Perfect Storm, which came out at the same time. But this is the better film. It might also be fair to warn viewers, though, that The Patriot is not a tame film, nor is it exactly a rah-rah, stars-and-stripes-forever kind of flick. This movie has a mean streak.

Its dark side begins with star Mel Gibson, who plays widowed family man Benjamin Martin, a South Carolina planter in 1776 who opposes the Colonists’ struggle against the marching British soldiers.  Martin’s community, vaguely aware of his mysterious, violent past and reticence to speak about his reputation, gained during the French-Indian War, is nonetheless surprised by his reluctance to fight and lend support to the effort. Martin’s eldest son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger), however, differs from his father’s viewpoint and departs from dad’s side in order to enlist in the cause. Though Martin continues to resist getting involved, it’s inevitable, especially with one of his seven children actually out there fighting, that he will become entangled in the whole mess… and when he does, watch out! It’s Mad Mel kicking Redcoat butt like nobody’s business, and scaring us a bit, too, with his frightening efficiency.

But then, that’s always been one of Gibson’s stronger points as an actor. Throughout his career, he has been able to retain all his charisma, charm and likeability, while also keeping audiences on the edge with many of his characters, always having us believe they were mere degrees away from descending into madness. Here, when tragedy first strikes his family, Martin explodes into a retributive fury — in front of his two youngest sons, no less — that shakes both them and us. In the hands of another actor, this type of scene may have put us off the character completely, but with Gibson, it helps give weight to his characterization and substance to what is yet to come.

The Patriot, as directed by Roland Emmerich and produced by Dean Devlin (the duo responsible for such hits as Stargate, Godzilla and Independence Day), is, akin to all their other films, a big motion picture with epic scenery, epic battles, a big-time score (by master John Williams), and most of all, big-time ambition. Known as notorious audience manipulators and frequent pushers of the “crowd-pleasing” button, Emmerich and Devlin wage war against their own reputations as lowest-common-denominator entertainers and come up with an engaging, at times captivating, and frequently moving motion picture. Yes, they still occasionally pull the strings on our sentimentality here, but if anything, they may have tried to overcompensate by… nah, that would be telling. Far be it for me to ruin the film for you, but just be forewarned.

Rated R for some graphic scenes of revolutionary war violence, The Patriot is definitely worth the price of a rental.  Besides their ability to present a fine-looking film (it looks absolutely gorgeous, with kudos to cinematographer Caleb Deschanel), Emmerich and Devlin get uniformly fine performances, most notably from their lead, Gibson, but also from rising star Ledger, the young talents portraying Martin’s family, Tom Wilkinson (as Lord General Cornwallis) and a deliciously dastard Jason Isaacs  as the chief villain, Colonel Tavington.