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Reviews
The Patriot (2000)
Very enjoyable Hollywood blockbuster.
Benjamin Martin(Mel Gibson) has a dark, shady past which he dearly wants to forget. Being a widower with seven children to care for helps him to do that very thing, but when his son Gabriel(Heath Ledger) signs up for the army to battle the Brits in the American Revolution, it's not long before events go awry, resulting in a family tragedy...
When Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich(producer and director respectively of such films as Independence Day) decided to do this film, they set out to make it a "really beautiful movie". If asked whether they had succeeded, the answer would be a semi-yes. It's not that this film isn't great, it is, it's just that what we have here is a Hollywood blockbuster beefed up with a decent plot and some good character development.
You won't be surprised when Mel turns in a performance that's as charismatic and captivating as ever. The treat here is Heath Ledger's star turn as Gabriel. Ledger hasn't "ditched the accent" as promised, but that doesn't matter, because here he has made his character someone you really care about. In "10 Things I Hate About You", he seemed promising, and now, in The Patriot, he dislays his full potential.
There's ample CGI usage on show here, a real standout being the fabulous recreations of whole towns. Of course, the entertaining battles are also effects-heavy and there's an amazing sequence where an in-motion cannonball takes up the whole screen for a split second and then proceeds to remove an unfortunate soldier's head. Exhilirating stuff, and guaranteed to make the audience jump.
It's no wonder that Spike Lee was getting all hot under the collar about the movie's script turning a blind eye to the treatment of blacks during this period in history. It was the 1700s, after all, so it's no mere historical inaccuracy to have American Southereners(!) talking about racial equality. It's just plain unrealistic Hollywood nonsense, and badly affects the film's believability.
The Brits are made out here to be real meanies, committing atrocities within the film that didn't even happen in the real war. Thankfully, this works for the film, because it's refreshing to have a baddie that you really hate(Jason Isaacs in a cold-blooded performance) instead of someone pathetically weak like Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus.
The final thing to be said about this film is that it has a richly sentimental feel to it. Mercifully, the emotional scenes never reach mawkish heights, but there's still a fair bit of heart string pulling about. That said, Emmerich compensates for the sentimentality by throwing in a good number of moments chock-a-block with gore, which is fair enough.
Rating:4 out of 5
Aux yeux du monde (1991)
Satisfying drama.
Aux Yeux du monde's main protagonist, Bruno, is an extremely misguided male who, at the age of twenty-two, has no aim in life and still lives with his mum. He is a joke amongst his peers and is respected by no-one. The film establishes all this in about five minutes and then it's off into the main gist of the plot...
Bruno makes it known to us that he is a nutcase by using his gun to hi-jack a schoolbus containing twenty-two children. The children's teacher(played by Kristin Scott-Thomas) objects strongly to this crazy act but is silenced when Bruno puts a bullet in the bus' roof. It turns out that Bruno's reason behind the hi-jacking is, simply enough, to impress his girlfriend. Which is admittedly ridiculous, but there's more development on that score throughout the film.
One thing you must get straight about this film is to not to have any misconceptions about it. It isn't an action-packed thrill ride akin to Keanu Reeves' "Speed", the main focus here is character interaction, at which this film excels. Although relationships get off to a(literally) bumpy start, things change and soon enough, Bruno is able to peacefully converse with the teacher and also develops a strong relationship with the children. The male bus driver is more stubborn though, and it is only near to the end that we see he has a liking for Bruno.
We get to know Bruno's girlfriend, Juliette, over a series of conversations he has with her during occasional stops at telephone boxes. At first, the hi-jacking has the desired effect on her and she finds her excitement hard to conceal, but its not long before she starts having doubts. Bruno is disheartened by this, but his love for her drives him forward to Spain, where she lives.
It soon becomes evident that Bruno has another motive, besides Juliette, for the hi-jacking: he feels a desperate need to prove himself. With an average height and non-muscular build, he feels depressingly inferior. His self-deluding(they don't really believe he'll kill them) domination over the children and two adults provides him with the sense of superiority he so dearly craves. Whether he'll escape the clutches of the police and get into Spain with his new-found masculinity, however, is a matter left to the film's ending.
It's surprising that, at one hundred minutes, you feel like you've been watching the film for a whole lot longer. This is to do with the fact that you've got to know the characters on such a deep level. The children are only there to be cute but the personalities of the bus driver, teacher, Juliette and Bruno are all thoroughly explored. And for that, the film leaves you feeling wholly satisfied.
Rating: 4 out of 5