BEFORE: Happy Thanksgivukkah! I wish I'd known months ago that the two holidays were going to coincide, I could have transitioned from "Pocahontas" to something like "8 Crazy Nights" - but I didn't. Instead I went with a Mel Gibson linking, and as a result the war category is almost completely cleared. I know it seems like July 4 would be a more appropriate date to watch this, and I agree, but I've covered just about every American (and Greek) conflict, except this one. (OK, so I skipped the Spanish-American War, Korea and Vietnam this time. You know what I mean.)
The truth is, I don't know what kind of chain I'll be involved in come July, and even though I have a couple other Mel Gibson films left on the list, sandwiching this film between "Payback" and "Bird on a Wire" didn't make much sense to me. I don't even know for sure if I want to link with actors next year, we'll see.
THE PLOT: Peaceful farmer Benjamin Martin is driven to lead the Colonial Militia during the American Revolution when a sadistic British officer murders his son.
AFTER: This is another war film that felt maybe too long by 25% or so - does any film really need to be 2 hours, 45 minutes long? Couldn't some editing have been applied to cut out at LEAST 15 minutes, while maintaining the same storyline? I mean, if we see Gibson's character saying goodbye to his children three times instead of four, isn't that enough? There are some other redundancies in the plot as well, but I'm not going to mention major plot points for fear of spoilage. But seeing the same thing happen again and again means that the story could have easily been simplified a little.
Old Mel shows a bit of the "Mad Max" psycho here (or maybe it's the "Lethal Weapon" psycho) as his character is a pacifist at first, but then gets dragged into the conflict of the American Revolution. I'm sure there must have been some people who voted against taking up arms, but according to this film, with the way that the British army treated even the Americans who were loyalists, by commandeering their slaves, land and supplies, they created more dissent wherever they went. Which means that the U.S. might have remained colonies if the Brits hadn't been such royal dicks.
But when his family is threatened, and his son is in danger, Benjamin recalls his fighting days from the French-Indian War - there's a backstory which eventually gets told - and takes on a squadron of Redcoats thanks to a few well-placed already-loaded muskets and his trusty tomahawk. It's only believable because of how long it took to reload a gun back in those days. Seriously, it took like 5 minutes at best, and even then you weren't sure you did it correctly until you pulled the trigger and it didn't blow your own face off.
What you see in the early battles of the war is a lot of gentleman-like behavior - you guys line up over there, and we'll line up over here, and you fire your weapons, and we'll get hit, then we'll take our turn. Were things really like that? Men were expected to just stand there and anticipate getting shot? With the Brits' superior numbers, there was no way for the Colonials to win - until they started "fighting dirty", hiding in fields and forests and shooting without warning. Yeah, they broke the rules but the rules sucked to begin with. And isn't that what rebels do, break the rules?
I remember learning this sort of thing in U.S. History class, but I think it's probably an oversimplification to suggest this idea came from ONE guy, or was a practice used just by the South Carolina militia, for that matter. But I suppose it makes it more dramatic to show the scrappy bunch of farmers, not professional soldiers, coming together to create more underhanded but efficient tactics.
There are also some insights into the proper methods of courtship in the 1700's, and they sort of nailed how formal people acted back then - plus I think there are some keen insights into the motivations of the colonists, the reasons for the Revolution. But there's also a large amount of melodrama here - like the young daughter who can't (or won't) speak. Seems sort of a cop-out to explain why she wasn't given any lines, or if not that, then the use of a disabled character to wring more suffering out of this family's situation.
We also see Gibson's character melt down his tin soldiers to make his own musket balls. Which was very effective since it turned out the British had no defense against irony. You think that a gunshot hurts? These also sting...
Also starring Heath Ledger (last seen in "10 Things I Hate About You"), Joely Richardson (last seen in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "Recount"), Jason Isaacs (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"), Chris Cooper (last seen in "The Horse Whisperer"), Rene Auberjonois (last seen in "Where the Buffalo Roam"), Donal Logue (last seen in "The Thin Red Line"), Adam Baldwin, Leon Rippy, Logan Lerman (last seen in "The Three Musketeers").
RATING: 5 out of 10 rocking chairs
No comments:
Post a Comment