The Patriot

Okay, okay, I'll grant that this is NOT a Steven Seagal action movie. That's fine. Seagal's action movies are no great shakes anyway. This is instead a virus-outbreak scientific drama. Fine. Trouble is, the level of science in this movie is about second-grade or less.

The disease is something viral. A character announces early in the movie, as the outbreak begins, that people are going to start dying in 1-2 days. However, many days go by and many characters are exposed to the virus, but the only ones who actually die are the ones that the script needs to die to show that several different experimental cures didn't work.

A character says this particular virus is 10 times as lethal as anthrax. With the mortality rate in this movie, if anthrax is one-tenth as lethal, anthrax must be about as awful as a sneezing fit.

"Universal precautions" is the term that describes how health care workers prevent the spread of disease between patients (and to the workers themselves). It means that ALL patients are considered to be contagious. So health care workers wear gloves when touching all patients and change between patients, and masks when anything might be in the air, and eye protectors when they might be splashed, etc. In "The Patriot", the government anti-viral team wears moonsuits from "Outbreak", while every other character takes ZERO precautions. Doctors don't wear gloves to handle patients with bloody vomit all over themselves. Nurses don't wear masks around patients with hacking coughs.

Dumb, dumb, dumb...

The Patriot is getting a lot of bad reviews from fans because of its lack of action. But The Patriot is suppose to be a vehicle to show that Seagal can really act, and I am happy to report that the guy is a really good actor. The plot is about the outbreak of a deadly virus in a small town. I am a big fan of Steven Seagal and I like the way he has been picking his movies. Fire Down Below was better than his prior films "On Deadly Grounds" and "The Glimmer Man" because of its slick directing and editing, and his cameo in "My Giant" was hilarious. The Patriot ranks with "Above the Law", "Marked for Death", "Under Siege", "Fire Down Below" and "Executive Decision" as one of his best films. I personally can't wait till his film version of Genghis Khan comes out. I give this one a solid 9/10

The film is a mish-mash of incoherent cliches ranging from a little girl and her pony, to Waco-like backwoods terrorists, to wise Native Americans. To be fair, the version I saw probably suffered slightly from poor editing for television broadcast.

Those who like Steven Seagal will be especially disappointed; yes, there are a few short action scenes, and people do die (most from natural causes). But much of the film is so sugary sweet that when it's all over, you will envy the dead.

Wesley McClaren leaves the biological division of the CIA to become a small town doctor. When a group of American terrorists release a toxin into the air, it mutates and the vaccine becomes useless. McClaren becomes trapped in the town with the terrorists in a race to find a new vaccine. However when his daughter seems to be beating the toxin the terrorists decide to use her blood as a vaccine and McClaren is forced to protect her while seeking an alternative cure.

This is yet another Seagal film where he preaches about his beliefs and promotes Native American culture etc. The down side of this is that it tends to overpower the action scenes - for example the last 10 minutes of `On Deadly Ground' was Seagal giving a lecture on big businesses impact on the environment. Here Seagal is battling a virus, so there's even less action - they wheel the terrorists in in an attempt to give Seagal some real people to fight. However there are no really good action scenes - which are the only thing Seagal can do well. In the place of action we have Seagal telling off scientists for storing diseases, telling everyone about the benefits of Native American ways etc. This makes the film feel very dull and wordy and I really wanted more action - but there just wasn't the chance for fights.

Seagal isn't very good. He's looking old and podgy and less suited to the all round action man. The huge amount of talking scenes highlights Seagal's weaknesses as an actor. The terrorist leader is poor, but it is interesting to see LQ Jones (A Boy and His Dog) as Frank. However Seagal is really stretched.

Overall this is poor - the threat of biological warfare is an interesting, emotive subject, but here it's hard to be interested due to Seagal forcing it down out throats. And the ending is hard to swallow and typical of Seagal's blind love for all things Native American.

Continuing my plan to watch every Steven Seagal movie in order I come to

The Patriot (1998)

Following his split from Warner Bros, Segal's business partner, Jules Nasso, put together a four-picture deal for Seagal. This was the first film that the financing had been solely raised by Seagal/Nasso Productions. There were no company logos, just Inter light Pictures and Baldwin/Cohen Productions present in association with Seagal/Nasso Productions

Apparently Seagal thought audiences were paying to see his movies for his acting ability, so he tries to show case that here as Doctor Wesley McClaren and its pretty embarrassing when he does try to do some serious acting. Like attempting to portray frustration as the soldiers die despite his best effortsnto save them.

I have to say, for me, this is the first bad movie in his filmography. Seagal adopts a really bad Western accent here. When combined with his trademark whispery voice, half the time I could not make out what he was saying. I'm the end I had to put the Subtitles.

Most of this movie is so moronic and implausible it beggers disbelief. There is lots of easily spotted foreshadowing and screenplay 101's littered all the way through the movie. I did make it to the ridiculous end, though.

The Patriot was the first Steven Seagal movie to be released straight to video in most countries. In just 10 years he had gone from promising action star to straight to video.