Parents' Guide to The Patriot

It's not perfect, but this is a very enjoyable popcorn movie, sumptuously and excitingly filmed, and rousingly entertaining. The action sequences play well, and Gibson delivers, as always. He's utterly compelling in The Patriot, whether he's grimly dispatching an enemy, looking tenderly at a tiny daughter who won't speak to him, or agonizing over his past sins. Fellow Aussie Heath Ledger is superb as Benjamin's oldest son Gabriel, at first impatient to join the fight and later a brave and mature soldier and an ardent suitor.

There's a long Hollywood tradition of reluctant heroes being forced into violence, thus giving us the best of both worlds: a hero whose heart is in the right place but whose muscles and gun are, too. So Benjamin has to find a reason to fight. It would have been better if that reason had something to do with liberty and democracy, but instead it's about revenge. (The only heartfelt struggle for independence in the movie is teenage rebellion.) It's worth noting that producing/directing team Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich play fast and loose with historical facts here. Not only is villainous Colonel Tavington so reprehensible that he enjoys burning down a church filled with civilians, but the film in no way acknowledges that the character of Benjamin was inspired by a real-life colonist who hunted Native Americans and kept enslaved people. In fact, while one racist character showily learns the error of his ways after being saved by a Black solider, the film pretty much ignores historical race relations and slavery. So The Patriot may be exciting, but it's definitely not an accurate history lesson.