The Patriot starts off seeming like a B movie in terms of cinematography, script detail and acting quality – seemingly worse than his worst early movie (Marked For Death). But it picks up and becomes a watchable movie with a mildly engaging plot, some decent scenes and a fair quality of work from the main man, Steven Seagal.
Within the first few minutes, it reeks of him not being challenged in the slightest way as he runs rampant with his own style of acting and storytelling. While there are advantages to this, in how he can unabatedly bring his visions and persona to life in the fullest form, there are of course downsides to such lack of critical feedback.
It starts to get a bit spicy within the first 10 minutes, then it deflates, then we get a bit of a plot twist as the core concept unravels.
Camilla Belle plays Steven Seagal’s androgynous-looking child in this movie. I honestly couldn’t tell if they were playing his son or his daughter until I looked it up.
Seagal drops a truth bomb or two in this movie, for example on the topic of western medicine vs alternative ways – at first I wondered how he got away with that, but it soon became apparent that it was little more than a bait & switch, as it proceeded to push modern western contagion theory, military enforced quarantine culture, and urgent blind acceptance of injectable cures. Add to that, how this movie also encourages its audience mistake patriotism for terrorism, then what we ultimately have, is 90 minutes of typical Hollywood filth, on a B movie budget!
We’ve already Steven Seagal go from skinny in his first few movies, to a stronger build in Under Siege, to getting chubby after that. Now he’s clearly gained weight on another level for this movie since his last one (Fire Down Below). He tried to hide his belly under a long trench coat in the opening scene here, but he’s not fooling anyone with that. He also took a break for a few years after this stinker, before coming back strong with Exit Wounds in 2001, so I guess he was going through a difficult time in his personal life around about when this movie was made and for some years after. Or maybe he just felt guilty about the shameful aspects of this movie, and entered a bout of depression?
Seagal divorced Kelly LeBrock in 1996 – the same year as he got written out of Executive Decision after a dispute behind the scenes – then he had mild success with The Glimmer Man (1996) and a little less success with Fire Down Below (1997) before making The Patriot (1998) under the wing of his own production company in partnership with some others. Then he took 3 years off, and came back strong with Exit Wounds co-starring DMX, Anthony Anderson, Michael Jai White and Eva Mendes.
Honestly, The Patriot is watchable – it’s a shame about its malevolent intent, but if you can overlook that and try to enjoy the movie, it’s not too bad if you’re bored and haven’t seen it before or recently enough to remember much about it. I won’t be in any hurry to rewatch it, but several years down the line I might forget almost everything about The Patriot and then be simultaneously mildly entertained and disgusted by it all over again – who knows.