Review of The Patriot (2000) by Pauljohnson — 23 Nov 2011

Totally predictable "one man's revenge" melodrama plot. Some outrageous moments that are so hard to swallow, and are obviously designed to tug at the patriotic heart strings of Americans. The dialogue was horribly written and so obviously scripted you could tell even the best of actors were struggling to deliver it convincingly. Almost no attention is paid through the entire movie to fleshing out the characters beyond a bit of their back stories and roles in the film. Heath Ledger is completely wasted in this thing, and Mel Gibson delivers the same bland performance as he does in any other movie; in fact during an ambush scene in the forest, I had trouble telling his character apart from the trees, his performance was that wooden.

The movie relies on so painfully obvious set ups, story twists and cringe worthy cliches, that it makes you want to stop the movie so you can go to the bathroom and vomit. A complete disservice to the memory of the Revolutionaries. Congratulations, George Washington, you and your men's cause has been boiled down to a pathetic, cliched, pandering, unconvincing, shocking manipulative excuse for a film. Roland Emerich, stop making movies. You cannot direct.