Scrolling through Netflix on a rather boring night, I stumbled across The Patriot. I was either 9 or 10 when the movie originally released, and I saw it then. I might have watched once or twice more after that — as I recall, it was one of the first DVDs my family owned. Some odd quirk of the TV and DVD player combo at the time made the screen flash, but I enjoyed it all the same. I don’t think I ever really got much about it in my youth except for a few main points: 1776, American independence, British are baddies, and war is gruesome.
Fast forward to 2022 and several national and global catastrophes later, I’m double the age (close to triple depending on when) from the last time I saw it. I’ve learned more about history, warfare, and humanity since then. I remembered a lot of the plot, but I was much more affected by the themes this time around. I’m not going to praise the movie as some masterpiece of the human experience or anything like that, but bear with me for a little bit.
Let me start with that The Patriot is. It’s a work of mostly historical fiction, but grounded in the constraints of the era. It’s a drama, not an action movie. It’s a small story. It’s a personal story. It’s maybe even a little artsy.
So what isn’t it? An action movie. A propaganda piece. An alternative history. A commentary on America.
From where I see it, it’s the story of Benjamin Martin using the backdrop of the Revolutionary War to tell it. The movie opens with a quote and near the end we see it finished prior to the final battle, as spoken by Benjamin: “I have long feared that my sins would return to visit me, and the cost is more than I can bear.”
The sins he speaks of (sorry for the 22 year old spoilers) are at minimum his massacre of the Cherokee and French that killed a fort of British Settlers during the French and Indian War. He describes his atrocities to his son Gabriel, after a prompt about “men always buying him a drink.”
His wife died at the age of 35, some 3 years give or take before the events of the movie, and he was left raising their 7 children with the help of (we don’t really get their story directly) the freed slaves that chose to stay with the Martin’s and later help hide his family during the remaining years of war. He seems to also receive occasional help from his sister-in-law Charlotte, whom he later kindles a small romance with.
Which is all to say, he is a haunted man that had been running from his past and trying to hold his family together. It all begins to unravel when his eldest son Gabriel runs off to join the Continental Army after a vote in Charles Town to levy troops that Benjamin opposed, speaking of his unwillingness to risk his family to the horrors of war in the colonies.
Those struggles of a father are perhaps what resonate most with me. I don’t have my own family yet, but I’m finally at an age and experience where I can understand Benjamin in a way I had not before. While I do not fear my past sins (yet) there are other things in my past that way heavy on who I am as a person. Will the actions of myself and others taint me, and haunt me through the trials of my life? Likely yes, and Benjamin shows us that’s okay. Those things cost us, and they will demand their debt be satisfied before long. For Benjamin, the cost is ultimately two of his sons and a fair portion of the men that followed him and the community that supported them.
In the end, something better does rise from those ashes. A new future. A better future. It only requires us to pick up the flag and charge into that unknown future.
As far as the historical backdrop goes, everything looked and felt right. There was clearly more than a token effort taken to props and set dressings, and it all feels convincing. The tropes of American ingenuity on the battlefield are perhaps overexaggerated, but they are grounded in reality: Francis Marion is likely a key source of Benjamin Martin’s character. Marion was known as “the Swamp Fox” (compared to Martin being “the Ghost”) known for guerilla tactics in the swamps of South Carolina (compared to Martin bein based in an old Spanish mission in the swamps). Marion was absent from the crushing defeat of General Gates at Camden (likely the battle Benjamin and Gabriel witness from the abandoned plantation). Marion also had a hated reputation and eluded capture by the British in South Carolina. Marion then later joined Nathanael Greene, “The Savior of the South,” who would drive the British from the Carolinas and essentially seal the way to Yorktown. This is the exact path “The Patriot” follows in telling its story, so I appreciate it being so well-grounded in the period.
Overall, it holds up after 22 years. The story means something different to me now than it to me as a youth. I also think it’s critical that it came out prior to 2001. I can’t help but be cynical and thing if this movie came out post 9/11, it would have been a much more “America” type movie, and might have suffered for it. Instead, the subtle patriotism of the promise of a better future of “a free country” where “all will be equal” does more than enough to remind the American audience what was at stake during the Revolutionary War. It even has progressives takes (that are period accurate) such as slaves joining the army for their freedom on said promise of equality, and the women in the movie doing their part to leave their marks on the historic conflict. I can only imagine the tweets today about how Hollywood is pushing their agenda by making up diversity in the Revolutionary War, blissfully ignorant of how critical the not-white-male demographic was to the period.
So, if you haven’t seen it: give it a watch. I hesitate to call it “fun” but it holds up, and will likely make you feel something. Isn’t that all we can ask for as we fork over $x/month to all these streaming services? Feel free to share your thoughts here as well.
Rampant Swan 