Shitty Movie Review - The Patriot

I watched The Patriot for the first time last night.



Holy fuck. The Patriot is a gigantic pile of shit. I mean, it's still pretty good if you look at it in comparison to most of the other shit Hollywood vomits up, but it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect from any film of its kind that chooses to completely ignore all aspects history, and instead play itself off as a heroic American epic. It's got the formula:

1) Pushing patriotism and inaccurate history to the point of propaganda, and
2) A total lack of depth in any of its pathetic excuses for characters. They rely entirely on the same one-dimensional, predictable retards we've seen in every other film ever.

The battle scenes were really fucking sweet though, I'll give it that much.

Meet our hero: Benjamin Martin. Patriot.

Benjamin Martin is a patriotic patriot. He's just a simple farmer, but with a dark inescapable past, and a passionate love for his family! His modest farm is too small for Gabriel--his rebellious, adventurous son. Gabriel seeks rebellion and adventure, and he cannot be tamed! When he finds his adventurous rebelliousness embodied in the adventurous American rebellion, Benjamin forbids him to go! You see, Benjamin experienced some dark atrocities during the French and Indian war, and he doesn't want his son going through the same things! Gabriel defies him, because his rebellious American spirit of adventure and freedom will be tamed by no man, especially not by one who isn't as rebelliously adventurous as he! But when an English Colonel thought it would be funny to shoot Benjamin's younger son in the back for no god damn reason, Benjamin took up arms once again to join Gabriel in his rebellious cause for adventure, liberty, freedom, justice, patriotism and slavery!

Meet the man who killed his other son: Colonel Tavington

Oooooh, that Colonel Tavington! Colonel Tavington spends his free time shooting innocent civilians in the fucking face with his flintlock pistol from 500 yards away on horseback, and also locking townspeople inside churches to burn them alive. He's so god damn evil, he shits Hitler mustaches instead of poo poo. The writers didn't even bother thinking up any motives for him. He doesn't need them. Colonel Tavington kills people so they will die. End of discussion. You question it? I hope you like dying. And so does Colonel Tavington.

He has no motives or direction for his destruction. He has to be the Joker or something. The Time-Traveling Joker. It's the only explanation.

"Hurfty durfty durf, I'm Colonel Tavington!"

Meet Benjamin Martin's rebellious and adventerous son: Gabriel Martin. What a dreamboat, am I right ladies!?


Gabriel Martin seeks adventure. And rebellion. His youthful passion for the American spirit cannot be tamed. It's just too rebellious. And fiery. And adventerous. He has too much of his father in him HAR HAR HAR. The only way they could have made him any more like Luke Skywalker is if they had him staring out into America's twin suns setting over the horizon. One sun is called liberty. The other one? Freedom.

The most hilarious aspect of this trainwreck was easily its depiction of race. Hey Hollywood, guess what? Whites in 1780 actually didn't look at blacks in the same way they do in the 21st century. Spike Lee is usually a raving lunatic, but he really did manage to hit the nail on the head with this: "For three hours The Patriot dodged around, skirted about or completely ignored slavery."

And it's true. Despite the dozens of black actors who appeared on screen during this film, slavery was hardly ever mentioned, and not once depicted. The only time it was ever brought up was when Colonel Tavington told a group of blacks that if slaves joined the British army, they would be treated extremely well and eventually freed. These black patriots weren't going to take that shit, you know why? None of them were slaves at all, they were all free men, SUCK IT TAVINGTON, THAT THROBBING PAIN INSIDE YOUR ASSHOLE IS AMERICA.

In fact, in the entire 3 hour span of the movie, we only see one slave, and he was freed at the end because he fought against the British. So I guess if you're going by The Patriot, the slaves were all freed after the Revolutionary War.

And just like in every historical movie ever, everybody pretends racism doesn't exist. It can be safely said that every fucking white person on earth was a racist up until the mid-19th century or so. The movie had one racist. This is how Hollywood thinks racial issues are resolved. They throw out mister "white racist who will end up learning a life lesson" and try to see how he'll interact with mister "one-dimensional wise black man." I bet you can't guess what ends up happening by the end of the movie!

First encounter:

"I am racist. Despite my blatant racism, I know of no racial slurs, you gat-flab African American!"

End of movie:
"Gosh golly, I didn't know the blacks fought for freedom too! Not only am I no longer a racist, but America will never experience any sort of racism ever again! Racism: SOLVED."

I'd like to see this technique implemented into Schindler's List 2, where the Jews convince the Nazis to be more tolerant, and are subsequently taken out for ice cream as an apology.

Nazi: "I'm so sorry Jewy McJewstein, the holocaust was wrong! Can you ever forgive me?"
Jew: "As long as you remain tolerant and respectful of other cultures! Now come on you scoundrel, let's go get that ice cream!"
Nazi: "Hold on a sec, I think I left the oven on!"
Both: "Hahahahaha!"

I just noticed that both actors are making the exact same faces in both of those screenshots - wise black man holding his head up high in reflective wisdom, and white racist squinting as hard as he can trying to understand cultural differences. Hollywood's got this shit down.

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