Perhaps, it's the themes in the film that make it feel regurgitated. As realized by Mel Gibson, Benjamin Martin is a man in the mold of Maximus from the recent Gladiator, a proud, reserved war hero grown tired of battle, who now embraces pacifism instead of killing. There are differences of course. Where Maximus took up the sword to seek vengeance for the deaths of his family, Martin reclaims his musket to preserve the family he still has. Where Maximus fought in the coliseum, Martin fights his battle on the fields close to home with his still-living son at his side.

The Patriot is as much a story about family as it is about the man who heads that family. Martin's children are the focal point of his life and his oldest son Gabriel (Heath Ledger) is his hope for the future. Thus, when Gabriel decides to join the revolutionary cause and fight the British, Martin is devastated, but he refuses to take up arms as well. Let the son learn from the father's mistakes. However, his pacifist mindset changes when his youngest son is murdered in cold blood by cruel, ruthless British Colonel Tavington (Jason Isaacs). Thus, as Maximus had a perfect enemy in Commodus, now Martin has the ultimate enemy in Tavington. With this simple set-up, the drama unravels out in drawn-out battle sequences, brief moments of romance and ample, but none-too-complex drama.

One of the truly outstanding characteristics of the film is the sheer magnitude of the battle sequences. The Revolutionary War didn't offer up the most dynamic confrontations. Like earlier wars, armies were still obsessed with decorum, which confined them to the infinite silliness of lining up on opposing sides and shooting each other until everyone dropped. Despite the inherently static nature of this set-up, Emmerich gets the most of it, especially when fighting progresses to hand-to-hand combat. If anything, it all gets a bit too real and bloody with cannon balls blowing off heads and blood gushing from maimed stumps of flesh. Unlike films such as Platoon, the point of The Patriot isn't the futility of war. Rather, it's the personal consequences of violence and, by focusing so much on these bloody battles, the real issues often get muddied.

The civility of the main battles is a stark contrast to the guerilla tactics that Martin and French officer Villeneuve (Tcheky Karyo) employ with their men. This element of "uncivilized" warfare is by far the most intriguing and the least explored in the film. Rather than a few scenes where Martin and his compatriots pop up out of fields surprising British soldiers, it would have been worthwhile to see these tactics really evolve throughout the film, emphasizing how one must put propriety aside and fight dirty to win. This type of fighting is especially dramatic because it forces Martin to return to the savagery he once embraced in his most successful battle, a battle whose memories still haunt his soul.

Granted, The Patriot intends to be less a war movie and more of a personal journey, yet the necessary focus on battles often downplays the character drama, which feels plugged in rather than natural. Gibson does his best to capture a man torn between duty and family. He is suitably restrained, as befits his character, although at times, Martin requires more passion than Gibson seems willing to muster. By the end of the film, this man has lost so much that his suffering is almost incomprehensible, yet his pain seems little more than a dull ache.

In many ways, Emmerich and Rodat bit off more than they could chew. Technically, The Patriot is quite remarkable, but these achievements only take you so far. Beyond that, the audience contends with a hodge-podge of character moments, some of which are quite moving but none of which ever completely coalesce. The drama is there, but it's just a bit too mechanized.