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 :
First off are two Trailers, one a 52-second teaser and the other lasting
two minutes. There are three featurettes, two lasting ten minutes apiece and
full of film crew chat and clips, The True Patriots and The Art of
War, while the third, Visual Effect, takes a brief look at the
special FX in two scenes.
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.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
