Happy PRESIDENT’S DAY folks... Harry here with a very timely report on PATRIOT.
This is a project that should be in your top ten anticipated flicks before us. Now I know that it’s going to be tough for a lot of you to put it there because it’s a film project of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin and the sting of GODZILLA is still aching ya, but this isn’t like anything these two have done before.
First off, it’s written by Robert Rodat, the fella that is up for the Academy Award for SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. And secondly, it’s looking like Mel Gibson will play the lead character of Marion in the film.
Basically this will be the first ‘BIG’ project that Emmerich and Devlin have done that was written by another person. It’s not a genre film, there is absolutely no cute ‘outs’ like the mysterious computer virus or a suspension bridge.... This is a straight ahead film.
In fact this is a no-holds barred R-rated American Revolutionary War film. It’s all based on real live events that involved such historic dudes like Light Horse Harry Lee, Frances Marion, George Washington and so on. It deals with the ‘Swamp Fox’ and the ‘Green Dragoons’.
Scenes of hacked up women and children, streets filled with hanged men, rivers flowing red with blood with the bodies of the redcoats and the ‘patriots’ floating by with exit wounds and missing body parts. There is death by oversized lead balls shot from muskets ten feet from their intended targets blowing spine out the back. There is saber battles, tomahawks and more. This is the American Revolutionary War film that we have never seen.
It talks about morning mist on gigantic battlefields, walls of thousands of redcoats marching, firing, creating a fog bank of musket smoke, then emerging from it to fire again.
This film handles intimate skirmishes all the way up to the battles that won the war for us and created this country.
On another level this film is just tragic, it will just tear you up. This film is not afraid to let the good folks around us die. And it is never ever... just a nightmare.
I really really have to say I’m excited by this shift to historic and period pieces at scales that we have never seen before. I mean, right now we have Tim Burton and his SLEEPY HOLLOW. We have Ridley Scott and GLADIATOR. We have (possibly) Paul Verhoeven and CRUSADE. Luc Besson and JOAN OF ARC. And now we have Emmerich and Devlin with PATRIOT.
I’ve read scripts to SLEEPY HOLLOW, CRUSADE and PATRIOT and they are absolutely fantastic. If Besson and Scott have similarly wonderful scripts... then we are in for some amazing treats.
In a way though, PATRIOT really really got me. I’m an American History nut. My uncle went of to Annapolis, graduated second in his class, he’s now a big dude in the Military... but as a kid, I always used to marvel at his little lead American Revolutionary soldiers. He had hundreds and hundreds of them. He’d have them set up to reenact the famous battles. My father used to tell me of the battles, painting incredibly vivid images for me. And now... comes a really great script that two very strong imagery concious movie makers are planning to make at a huge scale.
I hope they pay attention to this script, it’s the blueprint to a great movie. AND Mel Gibson.... he’ll be sooooooooooooo good as Marion. It’d be up there with the best characters he has ever played.
It is an ensemble film, Mel’s character has an adult son that has got to be played by a GREAT young actor. I mean... I wish Russel Crowe were just a tad younger (7 or 8 years younger) cause he was born to be related to Mel in a movie. The supporting characters are absolutely important here. We have to feel about ALL OF THEM. Even the smallest. Strong actors must be present... throughout.
Personally my favorite of this type of warfare film is the classic NAPOLEON silent film, then.... after that would come Michael Mann’s fantastic LAST OF THE MOHICANS... But this film has the potential to be bigger, grander and more intimate than any of those.
For me, this movie is akin to what happened to the Outlaw Josey Wales during the Civil War... It’s a legend creating film and it could absolutely chill everyone to the bone. It doesn’t have any cuteness at all. There are no sledgehammer emotional... Weep weep Old Man flash forwards. It just plays the story straight and it’s fantastic.
This is Emmerich and Devlin’s first attempt into GREAT filmmaking. I hope and pray they nail it, cause this movie could be one of those sitting next to EL CID, BRAVEHEART, NAPOLEON, LAST OF THE MOHICANS, THE ALAMO, etc... I hope...
