On P List of Movie Reviews

(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)


The Patriot (1998)

Rate: 3
Viewed: 10/20

Partriot98
10/20: I thought I had seen all of Steven Seagal's 90's movies, but somehow, The Patriot completely escaped my attention.

Back then, if somebody said, "Want to watch a Steven Seagal flick?," I would automatically think of Aikido, lots of action, and the Weaver stance. The Patriot? Barely any of them is shown. There's maybe a martial arts move every thirty minutes. At one point, Seagal does something incongruous: looking at the structure of viruses through a microscope. Whaaaa....?

The $25 million direct-to-video film states that NAM-37 is "ten times the potency of anthrax." But I'm confused here: for a leading immunologist in the country, shouldn't Steven Seagal know better to take protective measures after establishing contact with patient zero? Worse, he doesn't attempt to do the same thing for his (real-life) daughter.

Acting-wise, Steven Seagal is lifeless. Two wannabes appear: Burl Ives and Richard Farnsworth. The ending is silly: flower petals dropped from the sky to defeat a deadly virus. Yeah, right... *eyes roll* On a side note, director Dean Semler won the Best Cinematography Oscar for Dances With Wolves, hence the Montana landscape for The Patriot. But that's not why I wanted to see the film.

All in all, The Patriot is low in action and late to the party by a good three years after the releases of 12 Monkeys and Outbreak.