La lotta di Benjamin Martin nella Rivoluzione Americana

Production: USA, 2000

Director: Roland Emmerich

Starring: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs

Trama principale

Short Summary: Benjamin Martin is a widower living in colonial South Carolina with his seven children; he’s an hero of the French and Indian War but he feels the weight of his past actions, and he wants to live peacefully with his family, that’s why during the American Revolution, in 1776, when he is called to Charleston to vote Assembly on a levy supporting the Continental Army, he abstains. On the contrary, his two elder sons, Gabriel and Thomas, want to enlist, in fact when South Carolina decides to join the rebellion against England, Gabriel immediately signs up to fight without his father's permission.

Conflitto e vendetta

Some years later, Charleston falls to the British and Gabriel comes back home carrying dispatches; Benjamin and his family take care of the wounded soldiers before British Dragoons, led by Colonel William Tavington, arrive and arrest Gabriel. When Thomas tries to free his brother he is killed by Tavington who orders his soldiers to burn Martin’s house and to kill all the wounded. Upset by the death of his son, Benjamin decides to follow the British unit escorting Gabriel and, with his two younger children, he brutally kills many soldiers and free his first born. After this episode Martin entrust his children to his wife’s sister, Charlotte, while he begins to form a colonial militia of which he’ll become colonel and to attack systematically all the English troops. Later, Tavington learns the names of some membres of the militia, so he starts burning their house and killing their families. A lot of innocents are murdered, from Gabriel’s wife to Benjamin’s first born himself. Martin swears to avenge his sons and at last he do, by killing the English Colonel and defeating the British Army at Yorktown, Virginia, thanks to the French aid.