The Patriot (2000)

  I haven't seen this movie since I was in high school.  This was part of the Christy Collection from when we lived together and combined all our movies to take up an entire wall of our apartment and then some.  When she moved, I made a list of all the ones she had that I hadn't seen/reviewed and added them to my spreadsheet.  It's my own little way of keeping her close since we live so far apart now, as well as an opportunity to rag mercilessly on her taste.

Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) was a hero of the French and Indian War and is justifiably reluctant to be involved in the American colonies' fight for independence from the British.  His oldest son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger), is idealistic, hot-headed, and determined to fight for his principles.  These two men remain at ideological odds until a cruel and ambitious Redcoat Captain (Jason Isaacs) makes the war extremely personal.

This is the kind of sweeping, maudlin epic that gets critically panned these days for being too sappy, too simplistic, too long, and too impressed with its own jingoistic message.  And that's before we get to the problematic star.  

But this was made in the rosy, far-off past of 2000, before the never-ending war on terror and other convenient excuses to erode civil liberties in the name of "security".  Hell, this was six years before the infamous anti-Semitic rant that tanked his career (for around eight years and only in front of the camera).  Mel Gibson was box office gold at the turn of the millennium.  Heath Ledger was just starting to bloom into his heartthrob roles, and future Percy Jackson Logan Lerman was just a skinny, gap-toothed fifth Martin child.  In that sense, this film is kind of a time capsule.  Its watchability is going to depend on how much you, the viewer, are into this kind of thing.  For my money, if you're going to watch damn near three hours of Mel Gibson, watch Braveheart.  Or the Mad Max trilogy.  

The Patriot is currently streaming on Netflix.