as the idea of uniting a militia to stage pinpoint ambushes in the woods. Attacking by stealth, he becomes a fearsome legend, a ghost of a fighter. In one juicy scene, he sneaks out of hiding for an impromptu negotiation with Lord General Cornwallis (Tom Wilkinson), who leads the British troops in the South. Cornwallis is actually an honorable fellow, and that's his problem. He approaches armed conflict like a gentleman; he believes in war as a civilized assertion of Empire. What he can't wrap his mind around, because it has barely existed before, is the notion of a soldier who fights as an individual, without rules. As long as it stays on the battlefield, ''The Patriot'' is a brutishly compelling broad-canvas entertainment. But the movie is also inflated with clichs from the screenwriter's manual. There's the motley crew of loutish ''colorful'' proles who join Martin's militia, the squeaky-clean romance between Martin's soldier son (Heath Ledger) and a local lass (Lisa Brenner), the vacuously noble slave-turned-soldier (Jay Arlen Jones) who counts down the months before he's freed from servitude, and, of course, the eminently hissable villain -- though Jason Isaacs, it must be said, plays this overripe role to contemptuous perfection. Inevitably, he receives the gaudiest of send- offs, administered by Mel at his maddest. In ''The Patriot,'' freedom is a cause, but it's also an excuse: slaughter enshrined by nobility. Charleston - the battle is not shown, but the results serve as a time transition in the movie.Charleston - the battle is not shown, but the results serve as a time transition in the movie.2. Camden - the battle that Gabriel and Benjamin observe after they have both left to join the war effort.3. Unnamed - the climactic battle.4. Yorktown - the battle barely shown during Mel Gibson's closing narration.These four battles were actually based on five real battles:1. The British possession of Charleston resulted from the Sieg...
