Braveheart goes to America! (The Patriot (DVD))

Member Name: welshwolf

Product:	The Patriot (DVD)
Date:	24/09/01 (102 review reads)
Rating:

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Mel Gibson plays Benjamin Martin a war hero from the wars with the French and Indians. A past that he would rather forget. His wife has recently just died leaving him to care after the seven children ? busy man!! He is called to a meeting of the Wealthy landowners of Carolina to discuss if they should join the war but wishes to abstain, as he has nobody to look after his children. His eldest son Gabriel (Heath Ledger) disagrees with this and signs up there and then.

Ben Martin soon gets dragged into the war when his second son is killed by the British Officer Colonel Tavington and murders all the soldiers that Martin has been harbouring and takes Gabriel off to hang him. What follow are Martin and the two middle sons (advantage of a big family I guess) tracking down the twenty Red Coats who have taken Gabriel away and of course Mel Gibson as his best, one of the best parts of the film in my opinion.

The rest of the film is about Martin leading a motley band of brave rebels or Militia (does this sound familiar) to take on the British War Machine. The battle scenes are spectacular and the houses etc with great detail. Some of the scenes are quite horrific and if you don?t like blood this is not the film for you.

In the end the British are loosing soldiers to Martins group of bandits and they resort to flushing out the militia with some under hand moves. What follows is quite horrific and reminds you of the lengths some people went to and still do in war to win. I will not spoil the story by telling you what happened but be ready for a moving and thrilling plot that surprised me and kept me on the edge of my seat.

The film is based very loosely on actual historical facts but it does leave you with a very powerful eighteenth century war drama that I think I will watch again and again. Not as good as Braveheart is still worth eight out of ten.

The DVD packed in all the usual extras: -

· Widescreen with Dolby 5.1, whi
ch makes the battle scenes, come alive.

· Comments by director Roland Emmerick and producer Dean Devlin that were very interesting and gave a good insight to the film.

· Production Notes,

· The Theatrical trailers which capture the film very well,

· Visual effects interactive feature,

· Battlefield Feature- the art of war which is quite horrific,

· Deleted scenes and a number of features.


I was luck enough to pick this DVD up as part of a two for twenty pounds deal at Blockbusters but I think it will be one of those films I will watch again and again. Go out and buy it, you'll not be disapointed.

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