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dakboyd
Reviews
The Patriot (2000)
Pure pain for the viewer.
The popularity of this film embarrasses me. As an American and a student of history, I watched this movie with overwhelming nausea. The characters are one-dimensional stereotypes, the plot is predictably cheesy, and the script could have been written by my 13-year-old cousin. Mel is a revolutionary war 'action hero' in the vein of Rambo or the Terminator. Undaunted by his mere flesh wounds, he single-handedly wipes out an entire squad of British troops. He's a one man wrecking machine, rolling over the 'evil' British troops in a film that similarly rolls/glosses over the realities of the American Revolution. An overly corny, patriotic schlock-fest. 1/10
Revolution (1985)
Best American revolution film to date
I ran into this movie last year on the history channel and was pleasantly surprised. Al Pacino was superb, as usual, and all of the characters seemed realistic and fully fleshed. My only critique is that the plot was a bit wandering, and the 'friendly natives' were a bit deus ex machina. Otherwise, I found this movie to be a convincing, dark, and fairly realistic picture of my country's birth. This may be because this is the only film that I have seen about the American revolution that treats the event with some even-handedness. I was reminded of this recently when I happened upon Mel Gibson's more recent cheese fest, The Patriot, which was one of the corniest films I have ever subjected myself to. Comparing the two movies, Revolution comes out solidly on top with a 6/10.