Review of Patriot, The

Introduction

The first good news is that despite the RCE hype earlier this year, The Patriot plays fine in my multi-region Pioneer DV525 (auto switching).

Mel Gibson’s last historic epic, Braveheart, is one of the best films I’ve ever seen, and collected Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director amongst other accolades. This time around, Roland Emmerich is the director, with Gibson concentrating on the acting and film is about the American War of Independence.

Gibson plays Benjamin Martin, a war veteran turned farmer who is now more interested in his family than taking on the British. However, his eldest son Gabriel joins the army and when he is injured in a battle near the family home, the English, led by a brutal officer (Isaac Hayes) find the Martins hiding rebel troops and kill another of Martin’s sons before burning the house and taking Gabriel as a prisoner. These events make Martin reconsider his anti-war stance and he manages to free Gabriel before joining up himself to lead a band of militia designed to cause maximum damage with a minimum of men. The English go after the families of those involved, resulting in a hardening of Martin’s determination to fight – his success prevents the English advance and instead they face a final showdown.

Video

The video is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and as you would expect from a big budget film made earlier this year, the picture quality is excellent throughout. There are no signs of grain or dirt apparent and the image is colourful with plenty of contrast.

The film is mainly shot on location in South Carolina and the scenery is beautifully captured on film – especially during the spectacular battle scenes where thousands of blue and red coated troops line up against each other in the fields, surrounded by artillery fire.

Special effect wise, there are plenty of explosions in the battles, and plenty of extremely nasty injuries caused by amongst other things, cannonballs, knives, guns and axes – this is a brutal film in places and deserves the R rating it received.

Audio

The audio comes in Dolby Digital 5.1 and whilst a DTS mix would have been preferable, the soundtrack is of the highest quality.

Full use of the available channels is made, with plenty of steered effects and great use made of the surround channels. Obviously the battle scenes are the most spectacular sonically, but elsewhere in the film plenty of atmosphere is created with fighting or explosions in the distance etc. Throughout all this however, the dialogue is set at the correct level and is easily heard.

Features

Another R1 disc featuring a good range of extra material. The Patriot includes an audio commentary from the Director and Producer, three short featurettes – special effects, a look at tactics used in the American War of Independence and a historical look at the The Patriot which whilst a fictional piece is based on real experiences from the war. There is also a photo gallery, deleted scenes and talent files – these last three are accessible on the second page of extras – which may be difficult for some people to find as the selection arrow blends into the background. Apart from the niggle regarding the “hidden” second page of extras, the menus are nicely animated and look pretty good.

The film comes packaged in an Amaray case with a folded insert giving some background information on the movie and listing the chapter breaks.

Conclusion

The Patriot obviously had appeal in America due to the War of Independence content, and you may remember it stirring up some anti-British feeling amongst the easily influenced morons in their society.

Having limited interest in the war allows me to take a slightly more subjective view of the film. The anti-British feeling probably resulted solely from the conduct of Isaac Hayes’ character – shooting children and burning houses etc – but apart from this rouge, it’s a story of two nations fighting each other for what they believe is theirs to keep and in general they conduct themselves properly (or as well as can be expected in a brutal war, fought at close quarters). The battle scenes are spectacular, in the same way as Braveheart’s were - because of the sheer quantity of men and the brutal combat. There’s emotional interest for both lead characters – Joely Richardson plays Martin’s sister-in-law who he falls for, and Gabriel meets and marries during the film with tragic consequences. There is of course a vomit inducing scene where Martin carries the American flag up the line of troops – which has them all whooping and jumping up and down in typical American movie feel-good style!

The film is perhaps a little on the long side, as historical films tend to be, but managed to hold my interest throughout. Gibson is superb as Martin - he is well cast as a hero – and he is supported by an excellent cast who all play their parts well - there`s no weakest link on screen to spoil the movie.

The DVD has very good video and sound along with a good range of extras – be warned though, it is not compatible with all multi-region players that auto-switch regions.

Overall, Braveheart is a better film than The Patriot, but the latter is still an enjoyable way to pass an evening away.