"Worst American Revolution Movie?" Topic

If we limit it to the past 25 years, I have to say "Revolution" with Al Pacino. He was portraying the first Italian-American I think…

1776: The Musical. Does that count? Ech, that movie was horrid.

I've heard that one is pretty bad, but I've never seen it. I'd like to see it at least once and form my own opinion.

So, not having seen that one, I'd have to nominate "The Patriot". Truly dreadful in so many ways…

I love 1776! You have to enjoy men in tights, with wigs, and singing threats to each other. And some of those songs are simply a hoot.

The Patriot

Poll's closed, we have a winner….

Dom.

I have often wondered why there are not more movies which take place during this time frame ( 7 Years War or Rev War)? I remember loving Drums Along The Mohawk when I was a kid; Perhaps a remake of that would be interesting.

Don't know about movies, but there was a short lived TV series when I was a kid. "The young Americans"? "The young revolutionaries"? Not sure.

Basically 'The Mod Squad' meets Zorro set in Revolutionary times with General Laffette giving the 'squad' their missions. Even as a 10 year old, that one stank.

Anyone remember it?

I have to second that "1776" is the greatest AWI movie ever made! It is a standing tradition that I watch that movie every 4th of July or in the case of one year listen to the soundtrack as I driving cross country that day.

I mean come on…Blythe Danner!

But I have to totally agree with Dom Skelton, the worst AWI ever made…"The Patriot."

"The Patriot" most definitely. But truthfully, I don't know if I saw enough to pass judgment on which qualify for the worst.

"1776" is a classic, in my opinion.

"The Patriot" for the win. I mean, really, this isn't even close.

The Patriot. They didn't even try to get things right.

Everyone knows that the AWI was all fought up here in New England. It was the Civil War that was down in rebel country. :)

Its a very small pond, and the competition is feirce, but the very worst is, I would say, "The Patriot". Funny I watched a bit of it last night, just to remind myself how crass it is. Battle scenes though are pretty good.

"Revolution" is just kind of dull (and portrays a very wet looking America, which always looked off to me).

Are there really any more?

Best American Revolution movie; now there's a much harder question.

"Its a free country, ro at least it soon will be"
(Cue Whooping)

Whatisitgoodfor that was the Young Rebels, I thought I was the only one that saw it. Believe it or not that was Louis Gossett Jr. as the African-American. My opinion on this thread is that there are so few how can we run down the Rev War. Personally I thought that Benedict Arnold on A and E was AWFUL!!! But that may not count, being on TV and all.

Tancred,
The guns take to long to load and fire. Most moviegoers like big explosions and rapid fire. Remember in Last of the Mohicans that he fires two guns at the same time. The Patriot while not history is not that bad. I like 1776, it is goofy but it presented history in an entertaining atmosphere and it is very accurate. Revolution is to long. Parts of it are quite good. Then it drags.

I kind of liked Revolution and the Patriot just ed me off but at least the production values were good and it was good to watch, just put it on mute. The absolute worst are any of the Disney ones, especially Johny Tremain. Tremain is so full of garbage it is staggering and sure to tick off any Briton or Canuck even faster than the Patriot. On the other hand in Johnny Tremaine, the British, while being evil incarnate are not proto-nazis.

Whattisitgoodfor: You mean "The Young Rebels", 1970. Very short-lived TV show. Really, really bad stuff:

imdb.com/title/tt0065358

jpattern and Alabama,

Yes that was it. I hadn't realised it was Loius Gosset Jr. Fortunately his career overcame that one.

Yep, the Mod Squad in 1776. Really, really bad stuff.

I grew up in New Zealand which only had one TV station in those days. We saw all sorts of dross.

The Patriot is, in my view, the worst. I'm surprised there's been so few few movies on the AWI.

There's lots of errors in "The Crossing" that was produced by A & E a few years ago, but it might be the best. What do you think?

Kevin

The joke going round the British re-enactment community after The Patriot was released was, "Well, know we know why British officers wore gorgets — to hide their Iron Crosses."

Definitely the Patriot.

It was sooooo insulting that we (the viewing audience) couldn't understand what we (the soon to be American people) were fighting for.

They made it seem like the only reason we fought the war was because Mel Gibson's family was killed and because the British were EVIL. As in "Dah, donnah touch it, it's EEEVIL"

Pitiful, really…

I just finished teaching an in-depth class in the Amer Rev, and we watched a part of REVOLUTION (the early part in NYC and the battle of Long Island — which I think is excellent, though the last half of the film is dreadful), the PATRIOT which I think is very good in parts, and 1776, which is too cute by half but actually results in kids knowing/understanding quite a lot they didn't before. None is great, probably none is that good in toto, but each has some good material. And I take care to educate them on the limits of films as history.

1776 had the best Ben Franklin.

Revolution = historically reasonable but boring as a film.

Patriot = garbage in every way.

I liked 1776.

Except as a poster for the NRA in Mel's ninja scene, The Patriot manages to both blow and suck.

"Johnny Tremaine" is a very nice Disney movie from the 50's or 60's.
"It's a tall oak tree, and a strong oak tree.
And we are the sons, yes we are the sons,
The Sons of Liberty!"

Al Pacino in Revolution: "You got eats?

I haven't seen it (yet), but a friend of mine said that when he went to see The Patriot in the cinema, members of the audience cheered as the bloody sanctimonious 'Gibson Family' were pushed into the flames by the Nazis… sorry, British. :o)

I thought Patriot was a good movie. It may not be historically accurate, but it was a damned good yarn. Surely if a film is enjoyable, why slate it so?
I watch films to be entertained, not necessarily to pick holes in them.

Why slate it? Well I'd guess libelling a nation with war crimes they didn't commit is a taf over the top….

I keep meaning to see Revolution because I was nearly in it. It's filmed in King's Lynn, reasonably close to where I was living at the time. Alas i lacked the means to bunk off school :(

Managed to avoid being in the King Arthur thing with Rutger Hauer as well due to pressures of work. (Job description for extras: Willing to run around in chainmail all day. Oh and must have long hair!). Never mind, my screen debut will come!

To bad you limited to the last 25 years. I think the one that had Kirk Douglas & Burt Lancaster stank pretty bad.

Sorry to burst your bubble Sir James but the three most important battles of the AWI were fought in the South, specifically in North/South Carolina – Cowpens, Kings Mountain and Guilford Courthouse. Basically, the war in the North was over after Saratoga.

If you don't look at The Patriot as a historical film, then I liked parts of it. The battle scenes were pretty good, but the history was terrible. I didn't like the fact that they had to have such an evil bad guy. Sure, there were nasty people on both sides, but mostly they were just soldiers, and whatever brutality was committed was done on both sides.

I would love to see a movie about George Rogers Clark, and his war in the west.

Drums along the Mohawk was probably the best that I have seen, but unfortunately there is just not a lot to choose from.

So, from the comments above, then everyone must really like "Sweet Liberty"????

The mini-series or movie staring Dustin Hofman strikes me as awful.

For me the patriot was fine. many people forget that it was not intended to be a historical story. it was a good fictional story with nice uniform representations. A lot better than many that I have seen.

The Patriot, is the worst, it up there with Water World!

Malbrook, I liked "Sweet Libety". I loved the background story about the reenactors who hated making the movie because of the usual Hollywood crap. I talked to some reenactors who were extras in that movie a year later, and they hated it, because of the usual Hollywood crap. The polevaulting sequence particularly galled them.

I loved itfor the way Michale Caine "improved" on Tarleton. And Michelle Pfeiffer is always easy on the eyes.

A nightmare of mine is ever having to watch "The Patriot" again. I'd rather watch "George Washington" the mini-series or "Revolution" before that mess.

I'd really rather read one of the many books good books out there and work on my slowing growing AWI forces.

Landorl: I would love to see a movie about George Rogers Clark, and his war in the west.

+1 on that. If well done, it would be colorful, spectacular and thrilling.

This thread makes me want to rent Sweet Liberty and 1776, I'll tell you that.

I can't remember either Revolution or The Patriot clearly enough to decide which I think is worse, but either would certainly qualify. I wanted my money back in both cases.

Revolution! yes, this takes first place!

1776 IS A CLASSIC. every 4TH OF July we watch it!

Patriot, is far from a bad movie…..not the best, but enjoyable.

Anyone recall Johnny Tremain? another good film. Or the Disney series Swamp Fox?

To those who say that the Patriot is 'just a film' If an Arab nation remaded that film , but set it in modern Iraq- you Americans , wouldn't be saying 'oh, yer,good yarn.'
To my mind there's a wider political context too, Mel's slagging off of the English, which has everything to do with his version of catholicism and those who want Australia to deny its roots and see its self as a regional power and mini USA (and be the US's clinent state).
Sorry for dragging politics (and religion) into thing but its hard to avoid with Mel Gibson!

Hi

I guess your view on these movies revolve around "whose ox got gored"!

I was amused that the same people, for instance, who hated Patriot for having EVIL VILLANS, loved "Drums Along the Mohawk", which stereotypes OTHER EVIL VILLANS.

I will bet that if any of you were asked to get up and lecture on the Revolution, and not leave anything out, and not simplify anything so that no stereotypes were used, you COULD do it. Would it be entertaining? AND……..could you do it in 100minutes? THAT is the "worm in the apple".

Ya'll are offended by various movies based on a simple idea "That's not the way I would tell the story".

Each of the movies mentioned weren't horrible as in "Plan Nine From OuterSpace" horrible. Each of them were a movie, some, like the Patriot, used a fictional personage to tell a personal point of view of the story from a single point.

Just out of curiosity, with "understanding" and "hindsight" would you think an american would make a move about the war that, essentially, had an enlightened british monarch sheparding a continent into modern times only to have the "barbarians" in a fit of stupidity toss out the legimate governement?

Err. No. I doubt even the British would swallow that.

R

The Patriot.
Did any of you catch the toy soldiers he was melting to make bullets? They were from the pre WW1 court of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor. I liked the big battle scenes and they actually showed how roundshot worked. The British Nazi's were over the top, and Tarleton supposedly wore green. I saw a version on the whitewashed TBS and the mass murder scene- Mel Gibson slaughtering all those soldiers with an axe- had all the blood re-colored brown like mud.

Revolution certainly had a stark cold and dirty feel for the period, but it is watchable but not very satisfying.

I remember 1 Disney series that I liked was about Francis Marion- the Swamp Fox. It had THE WORST music- "Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, Sittin" on his ass, No budy Know where da Swamp Fox at" – or something like that. Leslie Nielsen was Marion.

Re. Swamp Fox, questions were raised about the series in the Canadian House of Commons because the series made the Loyalists (the "Tories") the bad guys while being rather more neutral about the British (that no one then in the US wanted to knock) and starred Canadian, Leslie Nielsen in his leading man days of yore. Maybe I can find some references about it in our Hansard? (BTW, Nielsen's brother was a cabinet minister, Defence, I believe, in the 1980s.)

My first inclination when reading the title of this thread was to pick a movie which was really good but had nothing to do with the revolution.

Then I drew a blank. Another brilliant snipe spoiled!

Worst. The Patriot – horrible acting too much Braveheart -crazy Mel being crazy Mel.
Revolution – not much of an impression on me
1776 – enjoyed it

And yes there are too few good films on the subject, which is strange. So much material, so many interesting characters on both sides.

How about this for a film: The escape from King's Mountain?
The story of Lt. Allaire and his escape back to Ninety-Six.
(Read a short version of the story in Chistopher Hibbert's Redcoats and Rebels). It would make a great film me thinks

Worst – the Patriot

As to the Tories, during the Revolution about a third of the population supported the Revolution, about a third supported the Brits and about a third sat and waited to see who won!

lutonjames

You got all that out of The Patriot?

Holy crap! That is some heavy extrapolation.

A real dog was "The Red Coat" Cornel Wilde as the hero, Michael Wilding as Capt Andre.

It was about the usual furore over Benedict Arnold and the haning of Capt Andre.

Hero whiter than white but changing uniforms like a good 'un, wearing civilian clothing to carry out vital intelligence work and then trying to save Andre from hanging.

B picture at its "best".

still shown on TCM regrettably.

It's funny, isn't it? There have been several good films set during the Civil War, but why hasn't the Revolution produced any decent flicks?

Leslie Nielsen's brother was Eric Nielsen, a Canadian MP from the Yukon. I'm not sure what his cabinet posting was.

Someone mentioned "The Crossing". I liked it, Jeff Daniels was pretty good. They said there were no US casualties at Trenton, there were- around 55 wounded I think. They also don't mention how the army got good and drunk on the Christmas booze liberated from the Hessians.

Another interesting A&E film was about Benedict Arnold, and I *think* Kelsey Grammer was Washington. It wasn't that sympathetic to Arnold, but they do try to show how he was screwed over finacially and recognition-wise by the Continental Congress, while other weak and cowardly American officers did better financially and in promotions. Arnold comes off as an extremely brave man who got tired of being taken advantage of, and who gets dumped on when he tried to take his slice of the profiteering pie. Slow but interesting.

There was also an old TV mini series with Barry Bostwick as Washington. I can't remember much so I don't think it was that good.