The Patriot. What follows contains SPOILERS, so be warned.
1. "The Patriot" is a revenge movie. Revenge movies are fine. But a revenge movie fails if the person upon whom revenge must be visited is either a) Hitler or b) blase' about his own life or death. In "The Patriot", the villain (a Timothy Dalton look-alike) is both, a vicious killing machine with no discernable desire to live other than to burn women and children alive. So, short of having the villain's skin peeled off, structurally, there can be no satisfaction. And there is none.
2. "The Patriot" veers wildly from the manipulative (excess usage of crying and/or dying children), to the sitcomish ("Saving Private Ryan" screenwriter Robert Rodat has expanded his few tension-breaking quips between men-in-war into broad cartoonish gag scenes worthy of "The Jeffersons") to a Saturday Night Live spoof of beer commercials (the slow-motion as men high-five after winning the big battle is missing only the blondes with big knockers and frothy pitchers, and the scene where Gibson hooks up is the exact shot of the most recent Corona commercials). In fact, the best part of the movie is when Gibson appears heroically, flag in hand, and all the militia scream "Huzzah!" but it sounds exactly like "Wazzzzzzzzzuuuuuuuuup!"
3. "The Patriot" is predictable. If you don't know whose life the stoic black-man-fighting for his freedom will save; if you don't know that the moment Gibson gives his daughter-in-law a necklace, it will be the proof of her death; if you don't know the "trick" played on the Brits to gain the release of American militia; if you don't know the fate of a warship off in the distance as the Brits live the high-life and general Cornwallis (the guy from "The Full Monty" moans about his less-than-spectacular unfiorm), you are a dimwit.
