The film stars Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs, Chris Cooper, and Tom Wilkinson.

Rodat has said Martin is a composite character based on four historical men: Andrew Pickens, Francis Marion, Daniel Morgan and Thomas Sumter.

The film generated controversy due to themes of anti-British sentiment and was criticized by historians over its fictionalized portrayal of British figures and atrocities.

A grieving Benjamin contemplates desertion, but after seeing the American flag Gabriel repaired, he is reminded of his son's patriotic dedication and decides to rejoin the others.

Rodat wrote the script with Mel Gibson in mind for Benjamin Martin and gave the character six children to signal that preference to studio executives.

Harrison Ford turned down the lead role of Benjamin Martin because he considered the film "too violent"[3] and that "it boiled the American Revolution down to one guy wanting revenge.

"[2] The film was shot entirely on location in South Carolina, including Charleston, Rock Hill—for many of the battle scenes, and Lowrys—for the farm of Benjamin Martin, as well as nearby Fort Lawn.

[2] Producer Dean Devlin and the film's costume designers examined actual Revolutionary War uniforms at the Smithsonian Institution prior to shooting.

[10] David Arnold, who composed the scores to Emmerich's Stargate, Independence Day, and Godzilla, created a demo for The Patriot that was ultimately rejected.

[13] The New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell gave the film a generally negative review, although he praised its casting and called Mel Gibson "an astonishing actor", particularly for his "on-screen comfort and expansiveness".

It's got big battles and wrenching hand-to-hand combat, a courageous but conflicted hero and a dastardly and totally guilt-free villain, thrills, tenderness, sorrow, rage and a little bit of kissing".

[15] In his review of the film, the critic Roger Ebert wrote, "I enjoyed the strength and conviction of Gibson's performance, the sweep of the battle scenes, and the absurdity of the British caricatures.

"[16] A highly positive review was purportedly written by a critic named David Manning, who was credited to The Ridgefield Press, a small Connecticut weekly news publication.

On the June 10, 2001 episode of Le Show, host Harry Shearer conducted an in-studio interview with Manning, whose "review" of the film was positive.

[18] On August 3, 2005, Sony made an out-of-court settlement and agreed to refund $5 each to dissatisfied customers who saw that and four other films in American theaters as a result of Manning's reviews.

[22] The Patriot was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Sound (Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Lee Orloff).

[25] During development, Emmerich and his team consulted experts at the Smithsonian Institution on set, props, and costumes; advisor Rex Ellis even recommended the Gullah village as an appropriate place for Martin's family to hide.

The film was harshly criticized in the British press in part because of its connection to Francis Marion, a militia leader in South Carolina known as the "Swamp Fox".

This decision received criticism from Spike Lee, who in a letter to The Hollywood Reporter accused the film's portrayal of slavery as being "a complete whitewashing of history".

Ben Fenton, commenting in The Daily Telegraph, wrote: There is no evidence that Tarleton, called 'Bloody Ban' or 'The Butcher' in rebel pamphlets, ever broke the rules of war and certainly did not ever shoot a child in cold blood.

Liverpool City Council, led by Mayor Edwin Clein, called for a public apology for what they viewed as the film's "character assassination" of Tarleton.

According to an American field surgeon named Robert Brownfield who witnessed the events, the Continental Army Col. Buford raised a white flag of surrender, "expecting the usual treatment sanctioned by civilized warfare".

In Tarleton's own account, he stated that his horse had been shot from under him during the initial charge in which he was knocked out for several minutes and that his men, thinking him dead, engaged in "a vindictive asperity not easily restrained".

Screenwriters consulting American works to build the character Tavington based on Tarleton would have commonly found descriptions of him as barbaric and accounts of his name being used for recruiting and motivation during the Revolutionary War itself.

Although historians have noted that both sides during the conflict committed atrocities, they "generally agree that the rebels probably violated the rules of war more often than the British".

According to Salon.com, the church-burning scene in the film is based on the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre committed by German forces in 1944, though "[there] is no evidence that a similar event took place during the American Revolution".

[43][44][45][46] The New York Post film critic Jonathan Foreman was one of several focusing on this distortion in the film and wrote the following in an article at Salon.com: The most disturbing thing about The Patriot is not just that German director Roland Emmerich (director of Independence Day) and his screenwriter Robert Rodat (who was criticized for excluding the roles played by British and other Allied troops in the Normandy landings from his script for Saving Private Ryan) depicted British troops as committing savage atrocities, but that those atrocities bear such a close resemblance to war crimes carried out by German troops—particularly the SS in World War II.

They have made a film that will have the effect of inoculating audiences against the unique historical horror of Oradour—and implicitly rehabilitating the Nazis while making the British seem as evil as history's worst monsters...

[47]The Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter said: "Any image of the American Revolution which represents you Brits as Nazis and us as gentle folk is almost certainly wrong.