: The Patriot

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- Bohamad
it's the most wonderful movie ever !
both the picture and sound are EXCELLENT
highly recommanded

Rating:

- Better on Blu-Ray?
Really quick:

I got this as one of my 5 free movies when I bought my Blu-Ray player (PS3!), and I wasn't that excited. I remember the movie being on the slow side and not very engaging, but when I popped it in the player I found myself really enjoying it.

There's nothing special about the content, the movie's the same, but this is a great value and I'd definitely recommend it for the $15 it now cost.

Maybe things are just better on Blu-Ray :)

Rating:

- Exceptional Quality
This is an exceptional quality Blu Ray and lifts what I would rate a 4 out of 5 film to a 5, purely due to the visuals. Why aren't all Blu Rays this good ... there needs to be a quality standard.

Rating:

- ROUNDSHOT
Very quickly into this film, I realized it was a Swampfox remake.

I give it two stars simply because it is the only film I've ever seen where you see the effect of artillery roundshot hitting a line of troops in close order. Not a pretty sight.

Gettysburg probably had the best artillery special effects from the blackpowder era of warfare prior to this. However, it confined itself to bursting shells and cannister. No roundshot, however, which was much more effective than the primitive shell fire of the time.

Also, once again we get treated to the stupid British regulars marching in columns and lines with the crafty Americans sniping at them from behind trees and rocks. In fact, Washington hired a Prussian drillmaster to get his troops where they were capable of fighting in columns and lines like the British as a necessary condition of winning the war. Baron von Steuben created the Continental army.

The final idiocy of the film are the Black people fighting alongside the American colonials. This is plausible in Boston with a freedman population, but not Virginia or the Carolinas. In the plantation South, the British offered slaves their freedom in exchange for military service with the British. There are communities of Black people in Eastern Canada that date back to this arrangement.

Rating:

- Entertaining and Educational Movie
The Patriot is a well done movie that is both entertaining and educational. It depicts some of the struggles the colonists faced during the American revolution, very well.

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