The Patriot (2000), written by Robert Rodat and directed by Roland Emmerich has an interesting way of developing and portraying the main characters. The lead role seems to be shared by Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) and his son, Gabriel Martin (Heath Ledger). Benjamin's character is revealed very slowly while Gabriel's character seems to be right out there for you to see, almost from the time you first see him. The genre of The Patriot was rather hard to determine. IMdB identified it as Action/Drama/War. This movie surprised me in many ways, in the aesthetic aspects as well as the elements of acting.
The Patriot is about the Revolutionary war. The protagonist, Benjamin Martin, is a small time plantation owner, widower, father of seven children, and advocate of finding peaceful ways to solve differences from South Carolina. Other than showing that he's also trying to build a rocking chair that will hold his weight, a task that he struggles in, this is all you know about him for the beginning of the movie. The exposition builds up as Ben takes his family to Charleston for a continental congress of sorts and his oldest child, Gabriel, (then 19) joins the colonial army against Ben's wishes. The complication begins some time later as a wounded, war-worn Gabriel stumbles into the house while he is on a dispatch run. During the time that Gabriel is at his father's house, the colonial army is defeated in Ben's fields. Ben takes care of all the wounded both colonial and British, and the British burn his house for harboring rebels and they take Gabriel as a spy. Thomas, Ben's second child, tries to help Gabriel escape and is shot by Colonel William Tavington. Col. Tavington is the character I believe is the foil, though in this movie its hard for me to tell. Throughout the rest of the movie there is a series of crises ranging from lost battles, friends being killed, Susan (Ben's youngest child) refusing to talk, and general grievances of war. These are all broken up with miraculous victories achieved by the militia that Ben and Gabriel are in charge of. The climax is built up to when Tavington kills Gabriel and Ben has to decide if this means the end of the war for him, or if he will "Stay the course" and continue the cause his son was so loyal to. Then the final battle scene ensues, the militia taking the unusual role of the first lines in the battle. After the two shots asked of them by Ben, he orders a retreat. The ranks fall back to the colonial regulars and the battle continues. A retreat is ordered, but Ben takes up the flag and insists on pushing on. The army follows and begins to make some progress. As this all is happening Ben and Tavington engage in hand-to-hand combat symbolizing the entire battle. Tavington seems to be winning when he taunts Ben and Ben turns around and kills him instead. After such a climactic moment the rest of the story is unfolded in a letter Ben sends to his sister-in-law, Charlotte, before it shows them returning home as a married couple after the war.
Ben's character unfolds slowly, you never really know what made him the man that he is until nearly the end of the movie when he tells Gabriel that the thing that he regrets the most is what most people see as his most heroic moment, the British seizure of Fort Wilderness during the French and Indian War. During this battle, Ben was ordered to lock the women and children in the church and burn it, and this moment has haunted him his entire life. When Gabriel asked what changed him, Ben states, "It was your mother that changed me," in other words, the power of love healed the wounds of the war, at least to him. His history in the army is what made him such a brilliant leader of the militia.
Many points in the movie left me unsatisfied with how it was portrayed. In many places such as a distant view of a battle or ships in the harbor it seemed too surreal, like a mural or painting as opposed to the real life that the rest of the movie was portraying. The lighting was used well though, many scenes during the dark hours of the day utilized fog and other elements of the night.
Overall this movie was an enjoyable one, though inaccurately portraying many parts of the war. It was supposed to focus on a French military leader (I have no clue his name), and in this endeavor was unsuccessful. It was also not well accepted in England due to its anti-British sentiment.
