In certain cases, facts should never get in the way of a good story, but The Patriot ended up causing controversy for reasons that had nothing to do with its creative liberties.
Naturally, though, historians and scholars were up in arms with director Roland Emmerich and star Mel Gibson playing fast and loose with the genuine events that inspired the blockbuster, which was to be expected given the former’s proclivities for spinning a yarn at the expense of accuracy, not to mention the latter winning two Academy Awards for one of the most inaccurate historical epics there’s ever been.
Critics were generally kind to The Patriot, and audiences enjoyed it even more, with the bravura battlefield story a regular fixture in homes across the country on July 4. However, at the time, an investigation into a review from David Manning exposed that he didn’t actually exist at all, while Sony was also busted for using employees posing as paying customers in commercials voicing “the public’s” enthusiasm for the movie.
In the end, Sony reached an out-of-court settlement of $1.5 million to those left feeling swindled, as well as a $5 refund to any moviegoer who felt dissatisfied by The Patriot after being told the complete opposite by the company’s planted praise.
Not that it’s dented the reputation of the end product in the eyes of streaming subscribers, seeing as The Patriot has been enjoying its annual on-demand rebirth this week after FlixPatrol outed it as one of the most-watched titles on Google Play, iTunes, and Rakuten all at once.