Patriot Essay

The movie "The Patriot" written by Robert Rodat, and also directed by Roland Emmerich, is a war and a drama movie. The movie was released in the year 2000, which stared Mel Gibson, who acted as Benjamin Martin. The movie takes place in the year 1776, in South Carolina where slavery was also very high. Mel Gibson plays as a widowed father who possesses seven children. Gabriel one of his sons is hanged after being caught, and was thought to be a spy by the British soldiers. Benjamin, and his eldest son, then fights with the colonial people in hopes of retrieving its nation's freedom. There are aspects of the movie that inaccurately depict the American Revolution; however; there are more things that are accurately told threw the movie.

Characters in the movie are portrayed as real characters in the past history; however; some characters are altered in the movie to make it less confusing. In the movie Colonel William Tavington was based on Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton is portrayed by Jason Isaacs, who was a massive killer. Anyone that decided to help the enemy directly became the enemy; he was a pitiless man with no heart or soul. A second character was Martin Benjamin who has six children, but in the movie he has seven. Originally Mel Gibson was supposed to play Francis Marion, however; they were informed by historians that Marion slaughtered Indians, and also raped his female slaves. The producers then decide to change the character making seem like a more fictional story and hopefully a more likeable hero. Benjamin Martin was also various characters, he was Elijah Clarke, Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, Andrew Pickens and Thomas Sumter, and all these characters put in one just to make him a more fictionalized person. Unfortunately, these kinds of historical inaccuracies appear only in Hollywood movies. Martin used guerilla warfare tactics which were nicknamed 'The Ghost' were originally a Francis Marion idea. There is also a quote that is said by Benjamin he says "aim small, miss small" this came out of Martin mount in the ambush scene. He means that if you aim at an actual person and you miss, you fail to kill the person. On the other hand, if you aim at the specific small object such as a button and you miss you still hit the person. The quote; however, was not words that came out of Martins mouth, but from Mark Baker, Mel Gibson's technical advisor, teaching him how to shoot. "I have long feared that my sins would return to visit me and the cost is more than I can bear." This is a quote from Benjamin Martin. Something that he couldn't bare would be losing his children, so he is afraid that his passed sins are back. A third and final character was Occam, who was portrayed by Jay Arlen Jones. Occam was a slave that joined the war against the British, in order to get his freedom back if he served for twelve months, showing use how kind hearted he was he decides to join them for more than twelve months fighting besides the colonists. In the 1776, there truly were slaves that fought with or against the British in order to get their freedom back. Threw out the movie Occam deals with racism from many of characters in the movie such as Dan Scott, who mocks him for not know how to read and so on. In real life slaves were made fun of,

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