Bravecoat

The Patriot is rousing, independence-minded entertainment

I guess it would be impolitic, if not outright suicidal, this July 4th week which saw The Flag finally come down off The Statehouse like Moses from the mount, to say much derogatory about a movie that not only makes a big deal about waving that other flag – you know, the one for our country -- but mythologizes a Revolutionary War hero from South Carolina history by casting Mel Gibson to play him. And was filmed here to boot.

Nevermind that it recycles elements from nearly every other Gibsonian plot:.as in Mad Max and Ransom he loses a kid and goes berserk; from Braveheart there’s a fight for freedom from English rule against apparently overwhelming odds; he’s a one-man combat proficiency seminar, as in the Lethal Weapon franchise; and like The Road Warrior (and Chicken Run, for that matter), his initially reluctant character shares hard-earned past experience with a ragtag bunch to unite them around a common cause. The Patriot is a big, broad, battlefield epic that serves to remind what the people who shepherded this country to maturity went through so their kids wouldn’t have to grow up eating kidney pie and talking like Sporty Spice.

Gibson is Benjamin Martin, a kindly widower lording over his cherubic kids and freed slaves on what would be, were it not for the ubiquitous presence and usage of firearms, the most politically correct plantation in the Low Country. Modeled mostly after Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion (with bits of Daniel Morgan, Thomas Sumter, and Andrew Pickens tossed in for good measure), he harbors a dark secret, dating back to his service to the crown during the French and Indian War, that has left him a devout pacifist. But when vicious British shocktrooper Colonel Tavington (Jason Isaacs, from End of the Affair) plans to hang his oldest son Gabriel (fellow Aussie Heath Ledger -- 10 Things I Hate About You) as a Colonial spy, Ben sees red. Suddenly he transforms from sedate landowner and shoddy carpenter into clever, resourceful killing machine, rallying a militia that uses devastating hit-and-run guerrilla tactics to fight the King’s better-trained professional army.* Their aim is to tie up the forces of Gen. Cornwallis (reluctant Full Monty exhibitionist Tom Wilkinson) in the Carolinas to prevent them from marching North to deliver a potentially fatal blow against the harried army of George Washington.

Written by Saving Private Ryan scripter Robert Rodat, which means you’re likely to lose a lot of major characters, The Patriot spends nearly three hours bouncing back and forth between acts of imperial British atrocity and homespun vengeance, with respites for humor and humanity from Mel and a neat cast of interesting supporting characters. Its grandiose climax plays on the horrible fascination of watching battle from days when less-accurate weaponry meant opposing armies often just stood there and shot at each other until one side lost too many men and ran away. Director Roland Emmerich, who previously scored summer blockbusters with the similarly patriotic-themed sci-fi epic Independence Day and Godzilla, recovers from an early glitch involving the embarrassing intrusion of a boom microphone down into frame to stage what my historian/re-enactor buddy Bill says is a pretty accurate depiction of how that stuff really went. I must admit to being a tiny bit disappointed, though, when no alien monsters showed up. Unless you count the British.

So call it what you want: Mad Martin, Yankee Doodle Max, Redcoat Dawn, Sergeant Yorktown. I still came out of The Patriot proud to be an American, whose progenitors (philosophically, anyway; my forebears were German farmers who didn’t get here until a half-century later and never shot much besides rabbits and beer bottles) sent Cornwallis packing with an admonition to him and his minders to leave us alone and go shag themselves, a sentiment the Fleet Street press, still unhappy at the Yankification of their own heroes in U-571 and peeved that American actress Renee Zellweger has been cast as the titular Brit heroine in a film treatment of one of the most popular English novels of recent years, Bridget Jones’s Diary, has been grousing about since this movie was announced. WARNING -- Libertarian Political Opinion Ahead! Plus, it buttresses the argument that a well-armed populace is important to keeping government in line and out of our hair.

You can have that last little comment, no charge. B

*It reminds me of one of Bill Cosby’s early standup routines, where he equates the opposing commanders of the Revolution to football team captains tossing the coin for first possession. The Colonials win, so they elect to wear dark colors and hide stealthily behind trees, while the British have to wear red and march through the open in a straight line banging drums and playing flutes.

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