The Patriot - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Patriot

Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
When you think of Roland Emmerich, you usually don’t think about greatness. FUN, yes, but greatness? Not so much. I really do have appreciation for Roland Emmerich’s movies, but most of them are over the top blockbusters like Independence Day, Independence Day 2, Stargate, Godzilla, Universal Soldier, and 2012 where things go “crash, boom, bang!”, but aren’t exactly considered cinematic masterpieces. They’re popcorn fluff, with lots of style but very little substance, and I’m perfectly OK with that. Universal Soldier is a movie I watch as many times as I possibly can, and Independence Day is one of those guilty pleasures that can be watched as many times as humanly possible without being unenjoyable However, back in 2000 (right as Gladiator was released), Roland stumbled upon a movie that would be considered an ACTUAL great film by many critics. Instead of watching aliens terrorize the planet, or Van Damme beat up Dolph Lundgren, the German director delved into history to create a highly fictionalized take upon what would be known as The Swamp Fox back in the Revolutionary War. The movie still featured his most favorite children (e.g., crashes, booms and bangs), but with a more mature twist thanks to some fine tuning of the material, as well as a trio of fantastic performances by Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, and Jason Isaacs.

Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) is a humble land owner in the Americas who has suffered a great deal back in the wars that formed this continent. However, his warring days are over and he would rather take care of his 7 widowed children than go back into the heat of battle during the beginning days of the revolutionary war. Independence is one thing, but a family man has more to live for than just fighting. This doesn’t dissuade his hot headed son Gabriel (Heath Ledger), who views his aging father’s pacifistic mentality as cowardice. Refusing to listen to his father, Gabriel enrolls in the war in order to drive out the redcoats and ends up getting captured in the process. Traveling to the British compound where his son is being held, Benjamin begs the commanding officer, one Colonel William Tavington (Jason Isaacs), for his first born’s life, but is treated like a common dog and kicked away with promises of wartime tortures to befall his “traitorous” son.

For any of you who have seen Braveheart, you already know this isn’t going to end peaceably. Throwing away the remnants of peace he has carved out for himself, Benjamin does what any father would do. He slaughters the forces transporting his son (in an absolutely epic scene) and joins the colonial forces in order to drive out the scum who would treat their kind in such a manor. The only thing is, he’s not going to fight the war on their terms. The British have massively superior forces, and have a lifetime of running campaigns on European soil, but they have no idea what they’re up against. Waging a hit and run guerrilla campaign (the first of it’s kind in that era), Benjamin and his rag tag band of Colonial minutemen send a devastating message to the invading red coats. We’re not going to ASK for freedom, we’re going to take it without mercy.

I’m unabashedly going to proclaim The Patriot as one of my favorite films of all time. Roland Emmerich matches just the right amount of large scale action with simple characterization to create what is probably his most well refined movie of his entire career. There is a distinct lack of historical accuracy (while Benjamin Martin is based off of the legendary Swamp Fox, the details with his rise to greatness and actual exploits in the movie are highly fictionalized to create that sense of tension between Martin and the Colonel), but it is a FUN movie that really does pull at the patriotic heart strings enough to really get the blood pumping.

Mel Gibson was on top of the world back in 2000, and rightly so. He’d had a legendary career and was pumping out great movies left and right. His name alone was enough to sit butts in the theaters, and the media hadn’t turned against him just yet due to his personal life (that would come in a few years). It also helps that Heath Ledger was just coming into his own as a really GREAT star (instead of just a pretty boy), and this was one of those films where we really got to see him spread his acting wings Jason Isaacs also dominates the screen as the brutal Colonel Tavington, and it’s his friction with Mel that brings the absolutely gleeful “love to hate” enemy that we all love to root for his demise. Again, not exactly the most historically accurate film, but these three actors really did elevate Roland’s grand ambitions much father than it could have been otherwise, and made it a truly great film that I can watch over and over again (even though it didn’t have a chance in hades at overturning the Oscar winning Gladiator, even though they came out right around the same time).




Rating:

Rated R for strong war violence




4K Video: Video:

Holy cow. We’re REALLY on a 4K UHD roll this month. There has been classic movie after classic movie being released this month, and except for Die Hard, have all featured jaw dropping video scores that are making me feel embarrassed for giving out 5/5 ratings like they’re candy. Sadly, I can’t really say that The Patriot deserves a lower score, as Sony has outdone themselves with an absolutely mind blowing technical release. The Patriot was shot on 35mm film and the film is lovingly rendered on 4K UHD as one of the best of the format. The old Blu-ray was considered a show stopper back 11 years ago (I used to think it was a 5/5 for the video, but new encodes, and better looking movies have knocked that score down a bit so I’m giving the Blu-ray a 4.5/5 as a result), but this is a massive leap over that old disc. The use of HDR gives vibrant colors that are so punchy and rich that they just stand out with jaw dropping saturation. Blacks are deeper and inkier than ever before, an the forest textures when Benjamin rescues his son had my jaw hanging down to the floor. Open fields, barns, rustic trees, and even the rough hewn clothing of the colonials shows up with razor sharp detail and much more nuanced details than the Blu-ray can possibly provide. The black levels are sleek and glossy, whether that be at dusk, or the middle of the night, and the hugely problematic issues of dimly lit forest scenes are handled with such relative ease that I can’t help but giggle like a 12 year old girl at how good this disc looks.






Audio:

Sony has seen fit to upgrade the LPCM uncompressed 5.1 track of the Blu-ray to a full on Dolby Atmos track, and while it’s a solid upgrade over the before mentioned 5.1 mix, it isn’t as startling of a difference as the video is. The track is loud, aggressive, powerful, and full of enough exciting action sequences to shake a stick at, so you can be certain that I was grinning from ear to ear the entire movie. Vocals are crisp and easily intelligible, locked up in the front of the sound stage. Surrounds are wildly active with the sounds of Gibson and crew trashing the British in the forests and swamps, and the LFE is just simply devastating. The real upgrade in the track comes from the added rear surrounds (which actually does add a nice layer of ambiance in the back of the room) as well as really impressive use of the overheads. I won’t say that the overheads are blatantly obvious throughout the film, but they do add a complimentary layer to the film and bleed through naturally. The scene in the forest where Benjamin rescues Gabriel from the British transport is a highlight for the film, with the whistling of bullets going by from all directions (Ben and his sons are constantly shifting positions), and the three dimensional use of the shifts make it a sonic treat. All in all, this a great track and an impressively nuanced jump from the LPCM track and a worthy addition to my audio demo list category.





Extras:

4K
• Theatrical Version of the Film
• Director & Producer Commentary
• 7 Deleted Scenes with Commentary
• Three Featurettes:
- "The Art of War"
- "The True Patriots"
- "Visual Effects Interactive"
• Conceptual Art to Film Comparisons
• Photo Galleries
• Theatrical Trailer

Blu-ray
• Extended Version of the Film (175 minutes)
• Two Featurettes:
- "The Art of War"
- "The True Patriots"

Final Score: ​

The Patriot is one of the few times where the stars aligned and one of Roland Emmerich’s FUN movies actually turned out to be a GREAT movie as well. It’s explosively entertaining like the director is known for, but there is a sense of detail and nuance that most of his films aren’t privy to. It may be due to some extra work on his park, the inclusion of three great actors at the prime of their career, or a combination of all three, who knows. All I know is that The Patriot is amazingly fun to watch, and for a near 3 hour film, blazes by at an incredible pace. The 4K UHD disc is an enormous step up in the video department and a good step up in the audio department AND includes a bevy of new special features that eclipse the anemic Blu-ray by a large margin. If I had any complaints at all in the set, it’s that the 4K UHD doesn’t included the 10 minute longer extended cut and ONLY features the theatrical cut (although the Blu-ray does feature the extended cut). However, this is a partial boon if you think about it. The Extended cut (at least in my opinion) was just that, an extended cut. It wasn’t a director’s cut and really doesn’t add a whole lot to the movie. The Blu-ray had some controversy 11 years ago when it released ONLY the extended cut on Blu-ray, and left the superior (again, just my opinion) theatrical cut gone completely. Now we have the opposite. The 4K is the theatrical cut, with the included Blu-ray containing the extended cut. The OCD completionist in me really wishes the 4K UHD disc would have BOTH cuts, so that fans of each version could see it in 4K UHD, but I’m more than happy with at least getting the theatrical cut on 4K rather than the slightly bloated extended cut ONLY. Definitely a must own set.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Mel Gibson, Jason Isaacs, Heath Ledger
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Written by: Robert Rodat
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Turkish
Studio: Sony
Rated: R
Runtime: 165 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: May 22nd, 2018

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Must Own

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. A great movie that is for sure for folks to own.