An article that focused on some neat elements of The Patriot that should appeal to readers here.
Jeff
http://www.msnbc.com/news/428878.asp
War of words
over 'The Patriot'Hollywood's horror over conservative family values
By John H. Fund
MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
July 4 — In 1996, when director Roland Emmerich made his last Fourth of July spectacular, "Independence Day," both presidential candidates endorsed his film. But that was science fiction. His latest film, "The Patriot," is about the founding of our nation and some of it rubs politically correct elites so raw that they slapped an "R" rating on it for portraying children defending themselves with guns.
MANY CRITICS have tried to dismiss the epic as simplistic, tub-thumping patriotic drivel. "There isn't an idea in it that will stand up to thoughtful scrutiny," huffs PBS critic Roger Ebert. Other critics claim "The Patriot" lacks heart. "There is no majesty, no feeling here: it's all FX and costuming," says Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post. This is bizarre for a film that dwells on the human impact of war on family and loved ones.
Still other critics correctly see "Patriot" star Mel Gibson as the next John Wayne, a new embodiment of American individualism, and they don't like it one bit. "The Patriot is right-wing hogwash bathed in an olde-timey golden glow," writes Arion Berger of the Washington City Paper. "Now the disgruntled, home-schooling, SUV-buying, pro-militia-but-cautious-suburban-family-values working man has a movie to call his own." This about a film that barely mentions the tax revolt at the heart of the American Revolution.
CONSERVATIVE FAMILY VALUES Politically correct controversy over a film that explores the human impact of war on family and loved ones.
Time out. Now we know in part why so few Revolutionary War feature films have been made - less than a dozen compared to 407 on World War II and even 72 on Vietnam. It's not just the strange costuming or a reluctance to make the Brits the bad guys.
"What you've got is folks that Hollywood would think are 'right-wing Christian gun nuts,'" says film critic Michael Medved. Indeed, Mark Gordon, who produced the acclaimed "Saving Private Ryan," admits that the Motion Picture Assn. Of America was upset by the scene of an 11-year-old firing a musket after British soldiers had killed one of his brothers. It led to the film's "R" rating. "We really wanted to get a PG-13 for "The Patriot,' but there was no way," a Sony Pictures executive told the Los Angeles Times. "The ratings board is very sensitive to any connection between violence and children, and here it's intrinsic to the story. Take it out, and the whole movie falls apart."
Screenwriter Robert Rodat, who wrote "Saving Private Ryan," defends the scene by pointing out the film immediately shifts to the boy telling his father (the Mel Gibson character) that he's glad he killed a soldier: "The look of dread on Mel's face shows us the repercussions of their actions. What scares me is violence that is realistically depicted with no repercussions." Indeed, there have been many films depicting children involved in combat that haven't earned an "R" rating. The Mel Gibson character resembles the Virginia farmer played by James Stewart who tries to save his family from the Civil War in "Shenandoah." Films showing Jewish children taking up arms against Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising have been hailed. So too have those depicting children confronting policemen enforcing apartheid in South Africa. A double standard here shouldn't apply to depicting war on the home front.
NO BEEF WITH THE BRITS
The British do have a proper beef with some elements of the film. Even though this is the first movie project the Smithsonian Institution has ever consulted on, dramatic license takes over at times. The most memorable atrocity - the burning of a church with the congregation inside - can't be found in Revolutionary history. But the British are not portrayed as Nazis, as hysterical reviews in British papers have claimed. Jeremy Isaacs, the British actor who plays the Darth Vader-like Colonel Tavington, notes that in the film, "My superiors are very unhappy with the way I'm behaving and my men balk at carrying out the orders I give them. So the notion that the British are represented badly is nonsense. I am the bad guy."
PERSONAL FREEDOM
It's easy to read too much into "The Patriot," which most people will go see as a crowd-pleasing adventure. But unlike many popcorn dramas, there is meat on its bones. "This film is about personal freedom - which many people take for granted today," says Mel Gibson. Its essential message is the same one that Thomas Paine told the colonists about in his pamphlet "Common Sense." It comes from the Israel of the Bible: Sooner or later, the king unchecked will come for your sons.
That should be a universal message, untied to any ideology, since tyrants have come in all hues, shapes and sizes throughout history. It's time for a cease fire on the politics of "The Patriot," and for critics to appreciate it on its own terms and not through the lens of their own contemporary sensitivities.
John H. Fund is a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and a regular contributor to MSNBC on the Internet.
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Hopefully it will make a lot people think the same.