The Patriot

Plot:
The emotionally charged adventure "The Patriot" tells the story of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson), a reluctant hero who is swept into the American Revolution when the war reaches his farm and the British endanger what he holds most dear. He takes up arms alongside his idealistic patriot son, Gabriel, and leads a rebel American Militia into battle against a relentless and overwhelming Redcoat army. In the process, he discovers that the only way to protect his family is to fight for a young nation's liberty. But his dark past haunts him.

Reviews:

Rotten Tomatoes

News:

10 May, 2000

Screen writer Robert Rodat talked to the LA Times about his script for The Patriot. "I'd been reading about the Revolution for a long time, and I knew as I was finishing writing Ryan, the next thing I wanted to do was something about the American Revolution. I live in Cambridge, Mass., and I regularly go to the Patriots Day reenactment out at Concord Bridge. But when I really got serious about it, I felt the events of the northern theater--Paul Revere's ride, the events at Lexington and Concord--were overly familiar."

The movie is different from most war movies in that it deals with a father and son together during wartime. Rodat said, "Most wars, like World War II, are fought by young men who are largely childless, [but] with the Revolutionary War, the battleground was not overseas but right at home. That interaction between parental responsibilities and the responsibilities of principle, coupled with having your children in effect on the battlefield with you, struck me as dramatically fertile."

Talk about it on the Forums

17 April, 2000

Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich talked to the Hollywood Reporter about the status of the movie. Emmerich said, "We had our first test screening in New York and now we're doing a second test screening next week. We're pretty far along. I think we'll lock the picture in 15 or 20 days."

He goes on to add that John Williams is scoring the picture. "We have enough time to finish the movie very carefully. It's not like we have to race to finish the movie. We're locking in the picture pretty soon. That leaves us enough time to do (everything) very carefully. Also, John Williams is scoring the movie. He came on very early on and he has enough time to write the music. I think we're doing really well time-wise."

Devlin talked about the 45 minute preview they showed a week ago. They had to decide what to show. "When we were looking at the movie, we realized that this isn't a movie that's about hype or effects or anything like that. We just thought the best way to give people the impression of what we're trying to do here is to show as much as we can at this point. The movie has to kind of sell itself, in essence. We didn't want to produce some thing too slick. We didn't want to make an extended trailer. We thought, let's just take a chunk out of the movie in the current state and show it and say, this is what we're trying to accomplish… We thought it was a nice cross section, too, of acting scenes and action scenes."

Emmerich adds to that saying, "We wanted to show a part where pretty much all the characters are introduced and where you see already part of the conflict. This was pretty much out of the first third of the movie. There's highly dramatic stuff happening in the middle and at the end, but we didn't want to give too much away. It's a little bit (like doing a) trailer. You choose a lot in trailers from the beginning to set up the story. So that was the thinking behind it -- not to give too much away, but give people enough to get an idea what the movie's about and what the relationship's about (for Gibson's character)."

They wouldn't divulge the final budget but did say "it was more than Independence Day, but a lot less than Godzilla. Independence Day was $71 million and Godzilla was $120 million."

14 April, 2000

The full trailer is now online. Hurry and download it. Very cool.

• Lo-Res 14MB MOV
• Hi-Res 16.8MB MOV

12 April, 2000

This is going to be a very violent movie. It is expected to be given an R rating for the violence. One scene in particular should guarantee that rating. It depicts two young teenage boys stalking British soldiers with their father. They are shown actually shooting the enemy. Director Roland Emmerich is refusing to cut the scene to get a more box office friendly PG-13 rating, believing it integral to the story.

Coming Attractions was lucky enough to get someone inside for a special 45 minute preview of the movie. Below is part of the review. It really emphasizes the violence and what it means to the movie.

I could spend hours describing in detail the visuals of men left headless by cannonballs or the image of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) literally dripping with blood after hacking repeatedly into a redcoat. I certainly could write pages recounting the penetrating drama of watching young children become innocent victims or explaining the sense of family maintained throughout the horrible war. However, any words that I could conjure would be completely inadequate. Let's see: amazing, shocking, brutal, overwhelming, and ambitious. Nope, that still doesn't work. With regards to Mel Gibson, the word BADASS certainly comes to mind. Heath Ledger as Benjamin's son Gabriel also delivers a great performance - how he was lost in a film like 10 Things I Hate About You is unbelievable. The film is VIOLENT, but it is NOT the type of violence that you cheer for. At one point, I found myself ready to scream 'YEAH!' after Martin hurled an ax through the air and into a fleeing redcoat. However, I was given an important gut check a moment later as Martin continued to hack to pieces the already dead soldier, splashing his face with the man's blood. This was the type of violence to hate, a sentiment mirrored by the look of shock and disgust upon the faces of Martin's children who watched the barbaric deed. From that point on, it was clear that there are people in the world who are not violence but simply driven to it and then there are men, like the brutal Colonel Tavington, who live to create suffering and death. Either way, however, The Patriot clearly shows violence in a negative light. The positive aspects that are emphasized are those of loyalty, family, and determination - Damn, those words are still inadequate. Sitting here now, flipping through the titles of film's that are due to be released in the next few months, I can't imagine any of those films being as effective and wonderful as The Patriot.

Finally today, the full length trailer will premier on the official website this Friday.

16 March, 2000

A whole batch of shots straight from the set. Believe it or not it can be worthwhile to dig around in Geocities. Not that having a site their is necessarily bad. This site got its start there actually. But the cool spots like The Patriot are the exceptions, not the rule.

7 March, 2000

A bunch of pictures today from ShoWest. I won't bother to try and explain them, just check them out they are quite stunning shots.

The news that accompanies these pics is that Sony is considering trying to make this a PG-13 movie. This would require cutting a lot of the expensive effects shots designed to show the brutalities of war. The American Revolution was somewhere between the kind of war seen in Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan. Hand to hand combat, muskets firing lead balls, cannons and rows of troops slamming into each other. This shouldn't be pretty and reportedly it was shot to shock the viewer. It would be a shame for Sony to wimp out and try and sell us something softer. It robs the battles of their impact and reduces the movie.

27 January, 2000

The official website for the movie is open. There isn't much there just yet. It does provide a short synopsis of the plot and the picture to the left.

In the emotionally-charged adventure THE PATRIOT, Academy Award® winner Mel Gibson stars as Benjamin Martin, a reluctant hero who is swept into the American Revolution when the war reaches his home and threatens his family.

A hero of the fierce French and Indian conflict, Martin had renounced fighting forever to raise his family in peace. But when the British arrive at his South Carolina home and endanger what he holds most dear, Martin takes up arms alongside his idealistic patriot son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger of 10 Things I Hate About You), and leads a brave rebel Militia into battle against a relentless and overwhelming English army. In the process, he discovers the only way to protect his family is to fight for a young nation's freedom.

7 January, 2000

A historical reenactment group known as the 7th Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line worked on the movie as soldiers. Luckily for us they have a website and more importantly, posted some shots they took during the filming. I've got a few of their shots below. You can find all of them here.

3 January, 2000

Here we have the advance poster for Mel Gibson's new movie The Patriot. I'm very interested in seeing the movie, being a bit of a sucker for stuff about the American Revolutionary War. Unfortunately the poster isn't doing much to add to my interest. Luckily the trailer was pretty good.

Teaser Trailer:

10MB MOV Hi-Res
6.3MB MOV Lo-Res