The Patriot Case

The Patriot starring Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger was produced by Columbia Pictures Corporation. The film was released on June 28th 2000 and was recorded in South Carolina and was directed by Roland Emmerich. Four months after the film debuted it had grossed $113,330,342 and had aired on a total of 3061 different American movie theater screens (IMDB).

The setting of the movie was in the year 1776 in a colonial state of South Carolina. The French-Indian war had only previously been concluded in which Benjamin Martin, played by Mel Gibson, had partaken in. Martin now only wants to live peacefully with his family who had been faced by the loss of their mother when the youngest child was born. Going against his fathers will Gabriel, played by Heath Ledger enlists in the Army when South Carolina voted to go to war against Great Britain. Soon after his enlistment, Gabriel returns home exhausted and wounded for rest which creates a dilemma for Benjamin that results in his entire plantation being burned to the ground and his young murdered by Colonel William Tavington played by Jason Isaacs.

Benjamin is then fueled by retaliation and decides to return into battle in hopes to have his revenge against Col. Tavington. He and his two boys begin by battling an entire British brigade with an intuitive and more sophisticated approach by taking to the hills and using their surroundings to conduct combat. Traditional battles were fought with two armies facing each other by firing rounds until they were either dead, or out of ammunition at which time they would fight using swords.

Benjamin now knowing that he could not have his shot at revenge with Tavington without a group of men goes into town and signs up any man willing to enlist in his militia. The group that decided to join seems to be one of every type of man that would be common to a small town including a pastor, wild spirited American Veteran, and a slave who is driven to fight and earn his freedom.

Early on in the movie Benjamin's oldest son gives reference to a war that his father fought in during the French and Indian war called the battle at Ft. Wilderness and questioned what took place that made had his father so famous. Later in the movie Benjamin gives an account of what took place, and describes how he ravished a small Native American village with killing specifically women and children. "We caught up with them at Fort Wilderness. We took our time. We cut them apart slowly, piece by piece. I can see their faces. I can still hear their screams. All but two. We let them live. We placed the heads on a pallet and sent them back with the two that lived to Fort Ambercon. The eyes, tongues, fingers, we put in baskets; sent them down the Asheulot to the Cherokee. Soon after, the Cherokee broke their treaty with the French. That's how we justified it. We were heroes" (Emmerich, 2000). The historical relevance of this is completely false since there was