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Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by

Columbia TriStar

Cert:

Cat.no: CDR 30441

Running time: 158 minutes

Year: 2000

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 28 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Pro Logic

Languages: English, Hungarian

Subtitles: 17 languages available

Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 35)

16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £19.99

Extras: Trailer, Featurettes: "The True Patriots", "Visual Effect" and "The Art of War", Conceptual Art to Film Comparison, Gallery of Cast Portraits, Producers & Director's Commentary, Deleted Scenes

---

Director:

Roland Emmerich (Godzilla, ID4, The Patriot, Stargate, Universal Soldier)

Producer:

Dean Devlin, Mark Gordon and Gary Levinsohn

Screenplay:

Robert Rodat

Music:

John Williams

Cast:

Colonel Benjamin 'The Ghost' Martin: Mel Gibson
Gabriel Edward Martin: Heath Ledger
Aunt Charlotte Putnam Selton: Joely Richardson
Colonel William Tavington: Jason Isaacs
Colonel Harry Burwel: Chris Cooper
Major Jean Villeneuve: Tchéky Karyo
Anne Patricia Howard: Lisa Brenner
Dan Scott: Donal Logue
John Billings: Leon Rippy
Captain Wilkins: Adam Baldwin
Thomas Martin: Gregory Smith
Margaret Martin: Mika Boorem
Susan Martin: Skye McCole Bartusiak
Nathan Martin: Trevor Morgan

Life is anything but a bowl of cherries for Colonel Benjamin 'The Ghost' Martin (Mel Gibson). Despite proving himself in the French and Indian Wars, it appears those deeds count for nothing now his wife has passed away and he lives in peace with his seven children and a housekeeper on their South Carolina plantation.

The film begins in 1776, just as the Declaration of Independence is about to be signed. No more war, is Martin's policy, but his eldest son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger) wants to sign up for the American army and, as expected, comes back injured. There's worse to come though when the war, literally, comes home to him and the British, portrayed as the baddies as usual, make their presence felt with Gabriel taken away to be hung. To add insult to injury, Martin's second-eldest son, Thomas (Gregory Smith) is offed by the leader of the pack, Colonel William Tavington (Jason Isaacs). To add insult to insult to injury, Tavington orders that their house is given a right, royal torching. Naturally Martin vows to get Gabriel back at least and then gathers together a private brigade to wage war on the entire English army.

War is depected as the pointless farce that it is as opposing army squares up against opposing army in what may as well just be a legalised firing squad, with a large amount of blood being spilt, certainly more than you'd expect for a 15-certificate action movie, but The Patriot gets away with it because it's harking back to historical situations and not quipping, "I'll be back".

The possibly-future Mrs. Jamie Theakston, Joely Richardson, affects a dodgy deep South accent and plays Martin's sister-in-law Charlotte.

There's also a few stomach churning clichés and American gung-ho speeches spoken as the film progresses, rather reminiscent of the ridiculous monologue by Bill Pullman in Emmerich's Independence Day.

Presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, the anamorphic picture is strong and sharp most of the time, save for some artifacts early on, plus in some later interior scenes. The average bitrate is a low 4.48Mb/s, occasionally peaking above 8Mb/s.

The sound is perfect though, with a typical war-like score from John Williams and battle sound FX ripping through every speaker in Dolby Digital 5.1 for English only, while Hungarians have to make do with Dolby Pro Logic.

Steven Seagal's The Patriot
- absolutely nothing to do with this film.

Extras :

The Conceptual Art to Film Comparison compares between the two in a number of cases, the Gallery of Cast Portraits carries scores of pictures and there are six Deleted Scenes, each with optional director's commentary. At least half of these should have been put back into the film.

Finally, we have a feature-length commentary from director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin.

Again, we have the usual 28 chapters from Columbia, which isn't enough for this lengthy movie. - just the right amount for an 89-minute film. Most of the menus are animated with sound.

There are subtitles in 17 languages : English, Dutch, Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Turkish and Dutch.

Overall, this was a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be, but it does irk you that it keeps ganging up the French and the Americans against the British.

Fans of the film though should note that the picture, sound and extras score well enough to warrant a purchase.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: