June 28, 2000 | Just in time to celebrate Independence Day with a dazzling burst of dramatic fireworks, we have The Patriot, an instant all-American classic with the full-bodied sweep of Gone With the Wind and the hot-blooded intensity of Saving Private Ryan.
Robert Rodat, screenwriter of the latter masterwork, has once again fashioned a singularly compelling fiction based on historical fact, enabling director Roland Emmerich (Godzilla) to balance the personal and the epochal in an intimate epic set against the tumultuous backdrop of the Revolutionary War. The movie is more than 2 ½ hours long, but don’t let that keep you away: Every moment is infused with urgency, every scene advances the plot or illuminates the characters. And the megawatt star power of Mel Gibson is more than enough to propel The Patriot at a clip brisk enough to satisfy even the most attention-deficient audiences.
Gibson is so dead solid perfect in the demanding lead role of Benjamin Martin, a reluctant hero who becomes a living legend, that it would not be an overstatement to say this is a part the often underrated (and occasionally over-indulgent) actor was born to play.
The opening scenes introduce Martin as a much-respected plantation owner in 1776 South Carolina. Famed as a heroic veteran of the French and Indian War — and haunted by the atrocities carried out under his command — Martin seeks nothing more than peaceful anonymity as he copes with his duties as widowed father of seven children. Eight of the 13 American colonies have already broken away from Mother England, and a Declaration of Independence is being hammered out in Philadelphia. But Martin refuses to join or support the war against King George, despite the entreaties of his former comrade in arms, Col. Harry Burwell (Chris Cooper) of the Continental Army. Even when Gabriel (Heath Ledger), his eldest son, enlists to serve under Burwell’s command, Martin remains steadfast in exercising his right not to bear arms.
Before long, however, the war literally comes to Martin’s doorstep, as British troops led by a snidely sadistic commander arrive at the plantation to execute wounded rebel soldiers. Innocent blood is spilled — and a warrior is reborn.
Taking their cue from Edward Zwick’s Glory and Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V, to name just two other recent films that take a revisionist view of “just” wars, Emmerich and Rodat refuse to romanticize the violence of men in combat, even when those men are nominal heroes. This is especially true in a scene almost certain to spark controversy, when Martin arms his two youngest sons with muskets, and leads them in attack on British troops who are leading Gabriel to be hung. We are forced to confront the up-close and personal ferocity of guerrilla combat, and to witness how Martin’s children — like so many other children in so many other wars, past and present — are pressed into service as killing machines for the greater good. Worse, we see how quickly even the noblest of men can be turned into bloodthirsty savages in the heat of battle, particularly when their savagery is ignited by revenge.
In his best and riskiest performances, Gibson often challenges the audience to remain on his side in spite, not because, of what he does or becomes. He is at the top of his form in The Patriot, offering a robustly vivid portrayal of a deeply flawed hero whose worst fear is the harsh justice of a just and angry God. (A nice touch: Martin frequently seeks divine guidance, even as he worries about paying dearly for past sins.) Martin is a natural-born leader, able to inspire a disparate group of militia irregulars in an against-all-odds guerrilla campaign against the British. But Martin also is a loving father, an instinctive gentleman — note the way he tentatively accepts the affection of his late wife’s sister (Joely Richardson) — and a man so dedicated to the concept of personal liberty that he employs paid workers, not slaves, on his plantation.
The multifaceted quality of Gibson’s performance is all the more satisfying for being the centerpiece of a drama that intelligently considers the complexities of the Revolutionary War, that shows how this fratricidal conflict divided families and friends into opposing camps. “This war,” Martin presciently warns early on, “will be fought not on the frontier, or on some distant battlefield, but amongst us.”
With a little high-tech help from the special-effects wizards, and a lot of old-fashioned conviction from hundreds of flesh-and-blood extras, Emmerich stages a number of rousingly exciting guerrilla clashes and full-scale battles. But The Patriot is most impressive when the focus is narrowed, when the movie concentrates on the words and deeds of individuals set against the historical backdrop.
In addition to Heath Ledger, an Australian-born newcomer who gives a star-making performance as Martin’s headstrong son, and Chris Cooper in the small but key role of Col. Burwell, the exceptional supporting cast includes Tcheky Karyo as a French military advisor who supports the rebels, Jason Isaacs as the cold-blooded British colonel who makes the Revolutionary War a deeply personal matter for Martin, and Tom Wilkinson as the slightly more honorable Lord Gen. Cornwallis, the real-life English commander whose progress was slowed by guerrillas much like Martin and his men.
To use the language of the movie’s time, The Patriot deserves a whole-hearted, full-throated roar of “Huzzah!”
