"The Patriot" Historical Accuracy Movie Review

The Patriot is a movie about the American Revolution. It depicts Mel Gibson as Benjamin Martin, a patriot who leads a militia in South Carolina against the British troops. While the movie The Patriot had a few similarities to the actual American Revolution, the majority of the movie was vastly different than what actually occurred during the Revolutionary War, such as the characters and the interpretation of the British.

The main similarity that was in The Patriot was in relation to the Revolutionary War as a whole itself. That similarity is guerilla warfare that the colonists used. In the movie, the British are depicted as fighting as gentlemen-they would line up and march at each other while shooting at each other in straight lines. Also in the movie, the British troops had drummers, and multiple rows of troops to fire, as they were well trained. The colonists in the movie, however, did not continue fighting in that gentlemen style. They turned to guerilla warfare. In the movie, the militia under Benjamin Martin uses guerilla warfare in South Carolina against the British troops. In doing so, the colonists were able to become highly successful and they were able to win many battles with the use of guerilla warfare.

There were also many differences. The characters, for starters, were vastly different than what actually happened in the American Revolution. Benjamin Martin was loosely based around Francis Marion, aka the Swamp Fox. The movie portrayed Benjamin Martin as feeling so guilt struck from what he did during the French and Indian War, and the guilt is practically eating him all up inside. He enlists to fight with America only out of anger of his son being brutally murdered by a British soldier. He leads a militia group in Southern Carolina. This is very different from Francis Marion. Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, is often said to be much, much worse. He was accused of committing even worse atrocities than those perpetrated by British soldiers, and he was also accused of being a serial rapist. Overall, not a very good person. This is a direct conflict with the movie, as the movie portrays Benjamin Martin as the good guy, as the guy that you root for. The movie did get correct, however, that Francis Martin did lead a militia group in South Carolina, thus the name Swamp Fox.

Another big difference between the movie and the actual events of the American Revolution was the British. The movie interpreted them differently than they actually were during the Revolutionary War. In the movie they were portrayed as horrible people. They murdered innocent children, innocent people, burnt down houses, and at one point in the movie they even gathered an entire town into a church and burned the church down, with all the people inside. These are horrible things. However, the British were not that bad. The movie portrayed them basically as Nazis-because Nazis committed those horrible acts, while the British did not. The British, yes, in our eyes were the bad guys in the Revolutionary War. However, they did not commit the horrible atrocities that The Patriot had them doing.

Therefore, as The Patriot was a very entertaining movie, it did not have a lot of historical accuracy for the American Revolution.