The Patriot

The Patriot, directed by Roland Emmerich, is an extraordinary novel based on the times a man named Benjamin Martin withheld during the American Revolution. This novel is fairly accurate to the true history of our nation as it came to be in colonial times. It displays the conquest of the life of a family widow man, and his battles throughout the American Revolution during the time period of 1779-1781.

Benjamin Martin, played by Mel Gibson, is a South Carolinian man who would rather the war between the colonies and “mother England” to be non-existent. He simply wants there to be peace with the people with no bloodshed. In the past, Benjamin was in the military, but because of loosing his wife, he decided to stay at home with his three sons and two daughters. The oldest son Gabriel Martin, played by Heath Ledger, is against his father’s wishes on not fighting in the war, because he is blinded to Benjamin’s reasoning. Because of his rebellious youth, Gabriel decides to enlist himself negating his father’s hopes.

Later on in the novel, young Gabriel stumbles home, injured from a nearby battle. The next day, Benjamin is taking care of several colonist soldiers, as well as red coats, which have stumbled his way. A British Colonel William Tavington, played by Jason Isaacs, shows no mercy in the fact of caring for the British soldiers. He decides to kill Benjamin’s youngest boy, Samuel, and burns down his house. This sends Benjamin into a furious rage, in which he ruthlessly kills in order to avenge his son’s death. Later, he joins the militia, and becomes a colonel, and his children move to Benjamin’s deceased wife’s sister, Charlotte Selton.

Throughout his time of being a Colonial Colonel, he makes it his own personal mission to find Colonel Tavington, and kill him. Benjamin, being a Colonial officer, fights along side of his son, Gabriel. He and Gabriel become quite close to one another during this time period. Though these two become close, they do not become nearly as close as Gabriel and his future wife, Trisha Howard do as the militia goes off to their “resting place.”

When Gabriel and Trisha get married, Ben and Charlotte hit it off because of all the love in the air. Shortly after the marriage, a trader of a man named Wilkins gives Colonel Tavington the directions not only to Charlotte’s plantation, but also to the militia resting place. Tavington burns the plantation, but what he does with the town where the militia took rest is even worse. He first gathered all of the townspeople into the church, and then burned the church with all of the townspeople locked inside. When Gabriel discovers this, he is enraged. Gabriel storms the British with a few Colonials, and fights until everyone but Tavington dies.

Benjamin, having lost two sons and a daughter in law to this revolution, becomes depressed. He nearly quits, but then proceeds in order to kill Tavington. At the