Le patriote

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.

I've seen a lot of Steven Seagal movies. I enjoy a lot of them. But I have to be honest, I don't always know if "laughing with him or at him". If you know what I'm saying. Steven Seagal in "The Patriot" is the Seagal I like best. He speaking quietly of "important" issues and then throws some guy through a window. He's a modern day Billy Jack and, every now and then, I need that. "The Patriot" is not Seagal's finest hour but it's not one of his weak ones either. It okay. It gets a passing grade.

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.

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

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...