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Patriot, The
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Entertainment

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 25 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): War
Written by: Robert Rodat
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 28, 2000
DVD: October 24, 2000
Running Time: 164 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for strong war violence
Starring Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs, Chris Cooper, Tom Wilkinson, and Donal Logue
In this story of the American Revolution, Gibson plays a pacifist turned warrior. Gibson joins his son (Ledger) in a bitter and personal battle for independence after experiencing the iron fist of a cold-blooded British officer.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: 10,000 B.C. Godzilla Independence Day The Day After Tomorrow
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
This bloody celebration finally gives the American Revolution the epic it deserves.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
A thunderous spectacle.
Time Richard Schickel
It has everything you want in an epic: sweep, scope, wild reversals of fortune and plenty of bold, basic emotions.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson
Sentimental, overbearing, flag-waving--and a crowd-pleaser.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Doesn't try too hard to be anything other than a vicarious experience that makes you crave the satisfaction you know you'll get when the hero gets his revenge.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan
If Emmerich had any sense, he would have ceded the direction of the battle scenes to his star.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
Emmerich might have had a masterpiece, but he'll have to settle for what comes close to being a must-see movie today.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
It's often corny, but it's never boring, and it'll sweep you up in its momentum if you give it a chance.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The best movie I've seen about the Revolutionary War.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is rousing and entertaining, and you get your money's worth.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
It's big, exciting, ambitious, and it makes you cry in all the right places.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
What might have been a treat for history buffs and a refresher course for the rest of us turns into just another occasion to watch Gibson shoot guns, swing tomahawks, and wreak other kinds of havoc on enemies we've been primed to hate.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Has a flag-waving dumbness at its core.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
There's no denying that Emmerich's film, though a good half hour too long, keeps us watching.
Read Full Review >TNT RoughCut J. Rentilly
Only so much (pop)cornball tubthumping, a sweeping, occasionally stirring, always gorgeous bit of action-figure history.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Mostly, the movie is riveting, well-done fare -- the stuff of Hollywood epic adventure.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
It's depressing that this first movie in years to dramatize the American Revolution has so little to do with the politics of secession and so much to do with pop-culture themes of vigilantism.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
"We, the people" have never been big fans of movies about the American Revolutionary War. The Patriot, however, appears to be the movie that will break that historical jinx.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
It's a death-wish revenge thriller posing as a lavishly pastoral historical epic.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
As a whole, though, the movie is much less magnetic or believable than its star.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Far from the smart historical epic some might have expected, is just another feisty summer shoot-'em-up.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
While the film contains some terrific, realistically bloody battle scenes, it has a distinctly Germanic feel, both in its epic heaviness and in the peculiar way it revises the history of the American Revolution.
Read Full Review >Film.com Robert Horton
Gibson's performance is robbed of his customary humor, and he flounders around in search of the character's core.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Patriot reflects on nothing, except perhaps that the American Revolution was a golden opportunity for Mel Gibson to go postal.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
Shamelessly stirring, brandishing Mr. Gibson's anguished masculinity like a musket. It may be effective, but you leave the theater feeling used.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Bob Thomas
Seems likely to stir rebuttal from historians, especially those on the other side of the pond.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
The Patriot makes the Revolutionary War look like super-produced studio footage of the L.A. riots.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
A movie of cornball sentiment, humorously anachronistic dialogue, and expensive Colonial Williamsburg sets.
Read Full Review >Film.com Sean Means
Trots out more flag-waving wartime cliches than any movie since John Wayne's "The Alamo."
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Does benefit from Gibson's charisma...Whether it is quite good enough is another question.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Undeniably handsome..., but no cliché is left unturned, right down to the spray of toy soldiers falling from the hand of a dead child. Everything old isn't new again.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson
Whatever extraordinary ingredients are necessary to fashion a 1776 home run, this movie doesn't have them.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday
Overblown sanctimony and sentimentalism as corny as the Fourth of July.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Cat gave it a1:
Terrible movie...the best part was the costumes. Virtually plotless, blatantly pandering, and more like the real Mel Gibson than the real American Revolution, shall we say.
Jon A gave it a1:
The dialog is so embarressingly corny that my father and i laughed at scenes that were suppose to be heartbreaking. some of the action scenes were alright looking but we've seen it all before, truly awful.
Paul H gave it a0:
I really really hated this movie, that's the only thing i can even think to say about it.
Aaron N. gave it a2:
Embarrasingly bad, wildly ahistorical look at the Revolution. Utterly predictable plot, absurdly P.C. characters (Mel's character doesn't actually own slaves, they "just work for him"), and the less said about the "Club Med" scenes the better. A complete disaster.
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Stong and sometimes charming. If you like violence, Gibson delivers is quite well when he chops a British officer liek a butcher.
tyler gave it a10:
It was Great! Is the only way to discribe a movie as good as this!!!
George W. gave it a 10:
I only saw the edited TV version but it was stil awsome!!! i mean, whats cooler than one guy kill like ten brits in 60 sec's? nothing.
