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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 2000)
‘The Patriot’ overlong, its evils a bit overblown By Samuel McKewon Senior editor In the post-“ Saving Private Ryan” age of war movies, consid er doom the operative effect, and whatever film can not match Steven Spielbeig’is brutal bookend battle sequences had better make up for it in characterization In that vein comes “The Patriot,” a sprawling, nearly three hour Revolutionary War epic writ ten by “Ryan” scribe Robert Rodat and starring Mel Gibson. The film not only infuses the story with a character pure (and eventu ally overblown) evil, but finds a way to inject even more, ahem, patriotism through a guerrilla militia story. Something about the war for our independence from Britain - for the most part, it was visually uninspiring; its line-up-and-fire the-muzzle lacks the sheer artistry of medieval war (like that of a bet ter Gibson movie, “Brafoeheail”) or the mass destructive horror of more recent wars. To their credit, Rodat, Gibson and director Roland Emmerich understand that and build the story around a South Carolinian named Benjamin Martin, who raises a scrummy militia out of revenge and shadow fights with the red coats. And ifb an epic of a grander scale, as the movie moves between these scenes and Martini homestead, where as a widowed father he protects and rules over a flock of children. He uses his role as parent initially to support nei ther side in die war, still remem bering the apparent heinous war crimes he committed in the French and Indian War a decade earlier. But he can’t keep eldest son Gabriel (Heath Ledger, who exudes passions but little else) out of the fray, and itb Gabriel, on a surprise visit home, who eventu ally draws Gibson into war after a British cavalry officer (Jason Issacs) sniffs him out and kills another one of Gibson b sons. Issacs’ character, who goes by the name of Col. McTavish, is what one’s perception of the movie hinges on, and his perform ance lives up to it, though his Brit is so broadly drawn, and drawn to encompass evil so completely, that his penultimate salvo of mass violence might go a notch too far into audience manipulation, the kind of early act-three move that wipesuout a good portion of act two. All other Brit officers, includ ing Gen. Wellington (Tom Wilkinson), put on such prissy acts, itb a wonder they’ve won any battles at all. That portrayal isn’t likely anywhere near historically accurate, and the movieb authors make the war lines too clearly drawn, when the Revolutionary War remains even today our most complicated philosophically, with families being torn apart at the bone for shifting loyalties. Thereb some of that in “The 50% OFF Buyone i i Hair Care Product get 50% off second one ! * 2nd Mamrmjrf to of squalor test valu* • Not valid widi otter often. Coopoa expire! 7/1V00. J « Precision Cuts • Color« Highlighting» Free Parking | Patriot” too, but those villages that do waver only do so pre-Gibson - that is, when Benjamin, or his son for that matter, call men to arms, with all the men responding accordingly. Only one plays the other side, and he too is evil, part of die mass violence. Gibson’s portrait of vengeance is vibrant, occasionally brooding, to die point of bulging with psychosis in one scene, where he entrusts his pre-adoles cent sons with muskets as the three raid an enclave of lobster backs in a forest Still within the film’s first hour, the battle stands as one of die most powerful images in the movie, as well as the shot of Benjamin, drenched in blood, hacking away at a dead officer while his sons stare. Gibson is a versatile actor, one of Hollywood key embodiments of virtue, so that at the times he plays against it here, like in “Braveheart,” it somehow resonates as a moral good. A moment with his youngest daughter and scenes where he boils his dead sonfe tin soldiers down into musket balls are memorable. out oiner Baggage meant 10 maintain die virtue of Martin's character, which is based on a real-life patriot by the name of Francis Marion, carry feel-good political correctness that sours more than anything. “The Patriot” feeds us the hard sell that Martin uses only free black men on his plantation (Marion was not only a slave owner, but an occasional 10110- of them.), and that when the family needs sanctuary, there’s a slave-inhabited beach paradise waiting with open arms. With a Fourth of July slot and thick budget at stake, “The Patriot” was buih to make money, so these moves are understand able, though not necessarily for givable. Like his “Ryan” script, with a ham-handed joke in a few scenes, Rodat panders to an audi ence, rather than floods them with the complex realism of war. He leaves the images to accomplish that goal, and Emmerich, who’s directed one decent (“Independence Day”) and one stunningly bad (“Godzilla”) science-fiction movie to this point, crosses over to drama with skill, though the forest ambush scenes work better than those with the full armies, which never quite gained full acceptance in my mind, though they are recreated with accuracy. There’s only so many ways to tilt the camera at such a foolish way of fighting. It’s a sign of the standard “Saving Private Ryan” set that “The Patriot” counteracts its rela tively “light” battles with an act of atrocity that could be described as die church scene. The brutishness of it did not bother me as much as the arbitrariness of it, the very notion that the audience needed one last reminder of who is die enemy. While Martin’s scene of unleashed fury was frothy and unique for heroic character, this one does little more than add to the butcher bill. In a sense, much of the movie is that way - putting up with trav esty until h is finally vanquished - and Gibson’s climactic, albeit unrealistic, showdown with Issacs plays out along the battle that many considered as turning the war -The Battle of Cowpens in North Carolina. But you wouldn’t know that unless you had a press packet or understood the Revolutionary War well enough to follow along. “The Patriot” is less a history les son than it is an affirmation of America and what is good and right with it What is marginally disappointing - though not to the point that it destroys Gibson’s solid performance or the movie as a whole - is that it goes about affirming those values in the typi cd^Uxbous, ultra-American ways. About the highest praise that can be paid the animated space feature “Titan A.E.” is that it is af step in the right direction, that being away from the typical Disney animation add more toward die advances of Japanese animt, which is visually strdting (in a different way than Disney work) and often is accompanied by more humane plotting than die cookie-cutter factory that is die Mouse House. That said, the most recent cre ation of Don Bhith (best known for “All Dogs Go To Heaven”) still holds too many ties to the Disney ideal, all the way down the notion that die hero is not allowed to loll anyone. (Notice how villains always fall off cliffs, or are blown up, or have some other coinciden tal mishap.) And a few of voices are off-base entirely. But there are a few moments of genuine awe, Please see FILMS on 9