Guerra Biológica

The Patriot (nothing to do with the Mel Gibson film of the same name) came out Steven Seagal was still doing that 'saving the environment' thing in his movies. Which is fine. But it doesn't make for good action.

When the plot(?) of this film finally kicked in I saw the twist(?) coming a mile off. Seagal's anti-warfare, care-for-mother-nature stance is not very subtle. For a film that was originally going to debut in the cinemas it is shot very much like a TV movie despite some wonderful shots of the country by Dean Semler, the photographer of Dances with Wolves.

Steven Seagal does like 1 fight scene in the entire film and it's totally boring. As an action film it fails, as a drama it stinks, as an environmental message it's obvious. Avoid like Ebola crossed with plague.

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 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.

I've just seen the Patriot, released directly to Sky television in the UK I was expecting a really bad film, but I enjoyed it.

Okay it may not be as action packed as his earlier movies but if you watch this film in its own right rather than an unofficial Under Seige part III then i think it stands up very well.

As to someone's point that the action was just "tagged on" rubbish, I thought it was relevant to the story at that point.

There are only three movies that have shown Steven Seagal can act and this is one of them. Along with "Fire Down Below," and "The Glimmer Man" Seagal has shown he has talent.

Though there is not that much action, "The Patriot" is the best film because it means that the supporting cast along with Seagal must come together to pull off a winner.

I enjoyed everything about this film from the plot, casting and pace of the movie.

I was completely impressed by the performance of Camilia Belle who portrayed the daughter because she was a breath of fresh air to Hollywood even though she was in other films.

This is worth everyone's attention because Steven Seagal has finally made a movie that is tolerable and can be watched in comfort with the knowledge that it will not be boring.

I give "The Patriot" an 8 out of 10.