Ann White Cloud (Whitney Yellow Robe), and realizes that her body is also fighting off the infection. Wesley takes a blood sample from his friend Dr.
Wesley and Holly contrive to escape and travel to a farm where Holly's grandfather lives. Working at gunpoint, Wesley takes a sample of Holly's blood it shows that Holly has been infected, but somehow her body is fighting it off.
But too late, they realize that the vaccine they were seeking at the hospital is the same as the one they possess which only delays the effect of the deadly virus. They then proceed to invade and besiege the hospital, with much loss of life, and take medical personnel hostage including Wesley and his daughter Holly ( Camilla Belle). In court, having ingested the virus himself (believing that he also possesses the vaccine) he spits at the judge, and starts the rapid spread of the disease.įloyd's militia followers, who have been allowed to go free, attack the prison and rescue Floyd. The source of the virus is traced to a local self-styled rebel militia leader, Floyd Chisholm ( Gailard Sartain), who has given himself up after a long siege and has been arrested on weapons charges. Unfortunately for them, several have already died. He determines that the cause is a highly dangerous airborne virus and calls in a Biological Response team, who seal off the town while doctors start treating sufferers with a vaccine. But as it is, thanks in the main to Gibson, and in spite of the overtly evident faults, it's an above average drama.Near the town of Ennis, Montana, local doctor and former government research immunologist Wesley McClaren ( Steven Seagal) who has an interest in herbal medicine and is also a weapons and self-defense expert, is called to a hospital when people start dying from an unknown but very deadly disease. There should have been more thought given to the racial (slaves) aspects in the conflict, and this coupled with the bad errors of under developed characters hurts "The Patriot" as a filmic exercise, not so as to stop it being entertaining, but more to stop it being a one man show. All of this is given a John Williams score that suitably flits between rousing and ethereal, and things are further boosted by the sumptuous photography from Caleb Deschanel. There is of course lots of tragedy to be found in the film, and these are some what surprisingly, tenderly handled by Emmerich, but mostly it's via an on song Gibson, who remains one of the few modern day male actors capable of believable grief. Not even the overtly flag waving and sloganeering on show can off set the impact of the well constructed battles. While cannonball's whizz, bang and tear off body parts, it's grim, yet oddly rousing stuff. Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day" and "Godzilla") directs and handles the battle sequences very well, there's lashings of blood as men line up to shoot and dismember one and other. So much so it ultimately turns into a one man star vehicle, which for a costume war epic isn't a great thing really. Surrounded by caricature villains (though Jason Isaacs' Tavington is deliciously vile) and underwritten characters (Chris Cooper wasted and Joely Richardson is but a mere prop), Gibson has no choice but to hog the screen. The problems, acting wise, lay away from Gibbo's central performance. It's very easy to accept him as a staunch family man who transforms into a blood thirsty warrior. Gibson is fine, he shoulders the burden of the film with great gusto and no shortage of emotional depth. So casting aside the artistic licence factors, is "The Patriot" any good? Well nearly it is - nearly. It's not my want to scribble about the facts of Benjamin Martin (Re: Francis Marion), or William Wallace for that matter, information as such is but a mere click away on the world wide web. He loves the Brits does Mel Gibson, "Gallipoli", "Braveheart" and here with "The Patriot", see the pattern anyone? As with the aforementioned "Gallipoli" and "Braveheart", certain liberties have also been taken with events in "The Patriot" so as to glossy up for the eager Hollywood contingent. The Patriot is based around one Benjamin Martin, an ex-soldier, who now happily living as a family man finds himself thrust into conflict at the break of the American Revolution.
0 kommentar(er)
