Review of The Patriot (2000) by Selena T — 19 Oct 2013

Considering the patriots won the war they wrote the history books. Clearly the writer of this movie fell victim to that tweaked, tainted and bias view our nation has, in the writing of this film. For one I think if a man single handedly turned the war around his name would be more well-known than that of George Washington.

If a man and his two young sons alone took down twenty redcoats I think that would be a more famous story in the common household than the well know story of Christopher Columbus (aside from the heap of rubbish the most commonly told version of that story is) and even that of old Saint Nick.

I did rather enjoy seeing Mr. Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs) in there, once again not so honorably batting for the losing side. It was a powerful movie but do you honestly think the militia would have had enough food to keep both themselves and two dogs well fed, no.

It was extremely unrealistic in that it did not so much as touch on the true hardships of being a traveling solider and all that one must endure. More accurately they would be starving and sick some with no coats or shoes.

The part about not being looked down on if you don't join the militia or come back to it, was clearly not true. You were not free to leave without persecution from your fellow men. What was portrayed here was but a dream that we have pleasantly painted for ourselves in place of the truth.

If you didn't agree to join and help the patriot cause in every way that you could you were no better than a tory to them. They would have nothing to do with you unless it was to ridicule your choices.

The scene in the church however was accurate to the serious glorification of war that went on then as well as it goes on now to trick young men into signing over their lives. For a nation that loves putting down the British in the process of our learning about the revolution and the events that took place, a man who went around burning down the homes of militia men and killing innocent family members and friends I think would be at top of their list to teach us in schools all across our beloved nation.

I particularly think that we have glorified and justified all of our foolish and unreasoned actions with this movie. We did not just run head first into some strong willed uprising. What truly happened is we time and time again wanted to have our cake and eat it to.

We went from want to fight to asking for amends until war actually broke out. We viscously used propaganda in things such as the famous picture of what happened at "The Boston Massacre" to rally up an unneeded war and a powerful want for rioting.

We wanted the rights of Englishmen without the responsibility. We were at one point offered representation but turned it down. Yes it would have been small and outnumbered at first but it was a start we willing chose to turn down.

In the movie the one white man asked, what would a black man do with freedom? Well what did we do with it? We tax our people. We have shady government members. We have plenty of unjust things happening in our "free country" and our "new world" that go unrecognized and brushed under the carpet.

If we truly had the spirit of being free rather than the spirit of rioting then slavery would have been abolished along with the rein of the king. But instead we let movies like this, based off the minds of people who have fell victim to this heroification, cloud our eyes.

In reality, our actions resembled that of whiny children.