The Patriot
By Reece Pendleton
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Conscience-stricken by his own brutality during the French-Indian wars, Martin opposes South Carolina’s entry into the conflict with Great Britain and gives a heartfelt speech (the first of many) at a town meeting, pleading with the assembled statesmen to give diplomacy a chance, to spare their families the horrors of war. He tries to stick to his pacifist inclinations, but the battle literally spills over into his backyard. After a cruel British colonel, William Tavington (played by Jason Isaacs with all the subtlety of a James Bond villain), arrives at Martin’s home with his troops, shoots one of Martin’s sons, arrests another, and burns down the plantation, Martin becomes the Rambo of 1776.
The commanding American colonel (Chris Cooper), a longtime friend of Martin’s, begs him to stay and lead the troops to victory, reminding him of his deceased wife’s admonition to always “stay the course.” But a grief-stricken Martin has had enough and decides to go home. Fortunately for America, he finds the tattered Stars and Stripes that his son had been mending before he was killed, realizes the error of his ways, and rides back, waving the flag, to the huzzahs of the rebels. During the battle, when the Americans are about to fall to the British, Martin picks up Old Glory again, waves it around in slow-motion, and inspires his men to beat the crap out of the Brits. In case this is too subtle, he then uses the staff as a jousting instrument against his nemesis, Colonel Tavington.
These fanciful touches might be excused on the grounds of dramatic license, but not the film’s appallingly dishonest portrayal of race. Following in the footsteps of Mississippi Burning and A Time to Kill, the film presents blacks as little more than ideological window dressing, there to affirm white America’s inherent tolerance. Occam (Jay Arlen Jones), the token black character, stoically endures the indignities heaped upon him by the token racists, while the noble black masses happily toil in the fields, tend to the white children, and throw Martin’s son a Gullah dance party when he gets married. We might as well be watching Gone With the Wind.
