The Patriot

Herald rating: *

Cast: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs.

Director: Roland Emmerich

Rating: R15 (graphic and realistic war scenes)

Running time: 158 minutes

Screening: Village, Hoyts and Berkley cinemas from Thursday

Review: Greg Dixon

The cynical have always known that Hollywood is the United States' most important propagandist.

From The Sands of Iwo Jima to Saving Private Ryan, the Yanks' post-war film industry has made a dodgy, hamfisted virtue out of their brave young men taking on the various forces of evil for the good of God, truth and the American way.

Of course it's about entertainment, but beyond such frippery it seeks to underline - in grey-free black and white - the power and rectitude of Pax Americana, along with the continuing need for it to have the biggest say thanks to the biggest arsenal.

And so The Patriot. While this film's war, the American Revolution, was fought in their own, rather than foreign, fields, it asserts once more the arrogance of a nation that clearly thinks it invented all that is right, honourable and just in the world.

The year is 1776 and Benjamin Martin (Gibson as Gibson), a hero of the French and Indian War, is just trying to get on in his bucolic bliss as he tries to raise seven kids without his wife and their mother (thanks to film cliche No 1,204,678, the previously wayward Martin has been tamed by the love of a good, now dead, woman).

The trouble is that rebellion is brewing, though the notion that this has everything to do with trade and nothing much to do with "freedom" isn't given much of a run here. But Martin ain't interested. Though he thinks a war is just, he's a parent and doesn't have "the luxury of principles."

However, his headstrong son Gabriel (Ledger doing early Gibson) doesn't have the luxury of brains and ignores dad's stern warnings to the give war a miss. Besides, Gabriel looks good in a uniform, which is good for the pre-teen girlie market.

Two years, the death of another son to the nasty British and the war turning up in his front yard does for Martin's resolve.

He throws himself headlong into the conflict, turning himself into a guerrilla leader whom the nasty Poms dub "The Ghost." He's handy with a tomahawk, you see.

The rest is history, with Gibson's Martin apparently the catalyst. The rest is also so much bombastic blather.

Director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day and Godzilla) chooses to set his film's early tone with family values, cute kids and slapstick.

Then he decides to deliver a good versus evil (the Brits should feel rightly miffed by the film's decision to cast them as foppish idiots or nasty bastards) homily about the value of family with some of the bloodiest war violence since the aforementioned Ryan (also from The Patriot's writer Robert Rodat).

This result is a cheap-message flick which is unecessarily gory.

Ever wondered what a cannonball does to a man's head or limbs? Well, $11 spent here will show you.

Ever wondered if Mel Gibson should retire with his own flock of kids to his ranch? Ditto.

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The Patriot