The Patriot2000

“Would you tell me please, Mr. Howard, why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man's rights as easily as a king can.” What an incredible film. Despite seeing this movie so many times throughout my life, I didn’t feel the runtime at all. Yes, I know who made this movie, and it doesn’t matter because this film is so much better than anything else he’s done. It cannot fit into a box.  When Benjamin Martin wanted peace and refused to fight, he was right, and when he decided that the lives of his family were worth fighting for, he was right then too. His beliefs don’t change, but what he is willing to do does. His understanding and his devotion to a free America. Are things made a little more plain? Are the villains more black and white? Perhaps, but I think only so it is made viscerally clear what Benjamin, the militia, and the Continental Army are fighting for. There is much literal and figurative flag waving here, and as beautiful as those moments are, the true heart of the film is in the quiet moments and the look at the lives of these ordinary people.  I do not think of these patriotic films as misguided propaganda, an advertisement of something that was never for sale, but as a mirror to reflect what we should be and what we are. I would fight for my country if I believed it was a country worth fighting for. I am ashamed of what we have become, but I will always be proud of the ideals America represents.  God, I hope this is not the end.  “…It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”