The Patriot

Continuity mistake: In the part when Gabriel and Tavington are fighting right before Gabriel is killed, Tavington drops his sword before getting shot by Gabriel. When he is shot by Gabriel, he falls onto the ground which is clear of all debris. When Gabriel approches Tavington to stab him, Tavington flips over and stabs Gabriel with his sword, which he had dropped earlier.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Cornwallis is being shaved with a straight razor the amount of shaving cream on his face changes from almost none to nearly full in one shot.

Continuity mistake: In one battle scene, a soldier's head is knocked off by a cannonball but the same soldier appears in a later battle scene, complete with head.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Mel catches his son trying on his old uniform jacket. The shot goes from Mel to his son then back to Mel. The candle on the wall behind him is not lit, then lit, then out again.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Benjamin Martin is saving Gabriel from the Redcoats, he's hiding behind the trees. In the second to last shot before he runs down the hill to go hand-to-hand, you can see that the tree has red marks on it, and then in the next shot of the tree, they're gone.

Continuity mistake: When Gabriel is sitting in the snow writing a letter, we see a close up of a quill pen. Then, in the next shot, the writing implement looks more like a pencil than a quill pen. And wouldn't it be a trick to sit in the snow with a bottle of ink?

Continuity mistake: After the Green Dragoons burn the people in the church, the Militia chases them to the riverbank. Col. Tavington shoots Rev. Oliver who falls to his knees holding his rifle with the barrel to the right. Rev. Oliver throws the rifle up for Gabriel to catch, but now the barrel is pointing to the left.

Continuity mistake: Another mistake in the scene for the battle of Cowpens involves Benjamin Martin charging at Colonel Tavington. As Benjamin charges, the camera shows him from the front and you see he is gripping the flag with one hand, his right. The camera then cuts to a different view to show Colonel Tavington on horse back charging towards Benjamin. Although Benjamin is slightly out of focus, you can see that he is now carrying the flag across his body with two hands (Flag towards Benjamin's left). The camera then shifts again to show Benjamin from the front and you now see him shift the flag from a one handed grip to a two handed grip.

Continuity mistake: Right after the scene where Benjamin Martin attacks the British army for the very first time to save his son, Col. William Tavington is interviewing the only survivor of the attack in a tent in a British camp. His green collar keeps popping in and out from under his leather strap over his right shoulder.

Continuity mistake: At the end when they are returning to the homestead, in one shot, Charlotte holds a baby in her left arm, followed by a shot of one of the boys. In that shot, Charlotte's left arm is hanging to her side with no baby.

Continuity mistake: When Gabriel is pulling his knife out of the dead British soldier, there is a long piece of grass on it. It shows Col. Tavington's body on the ground, then it shows Gabriel holding his knife again, and the piece of grass is gone. He is also standing in the same position as before, so it seems unlikely that he pulled the grass off the blade.

Continuity mistake: After Benjamin and his sons ambush the British troops, a surviving British soldier is holding a knife to the left side of Gabriel's neck threatening to kill him. Benjamin throws his axe in the soldier's head, and he falls to the ground, but cuts Gabriel on the neck. As he falls, the knife drags along the left side of Gabriel's neck, but the cut is on the right side of his neck.

Continuity mistake: Tavington does a fast reload and adopts a duelist's stance, i.e. side on so as to make a smaller target. Gabriel shoots him and Tavington falls. We later see that Tavington is only creased on his left side which is strange since Gabriel could not have hit him there since it was the side farthest away from him.

Continuity mistake: After Garbriel gets married, there was a wedding party. During the party you can see a slave playing a xylophone-type instrument while a boy stands next to him. However, when Benjamin is talking to his new daughter-in-law, the slave can be seen in the background while the boy is nowhere to be found.

Continuity mistake: In the battle scene where the cannonball rolls through taking out the troops legs. Watch it frame-by-frame, two legs are shown close up to be taken out by the cannonball. Both explode at the time it passes through the first leg, not as it hits each one.

Continuity mistake: When Gabriel dies his head is facing straight up looking at the sky. then they cut the scene and show Ben then they show Gabriel again and this time he is facing his father.

Continuity mistake: As Benjamin's milita walk onto the battlefield on the morning of the final battle, we see many shots of the soldiers. One soldier has a bloody bandage around his forehead and blood running down his face. This is early morning and there didn't seem to be a battle the previous day. Why is he bleeding, and why wasn't it cleaned up during the night?

Continuity mistake: This mistake is painfully speculative. A British soldier falls "as if he was hit with Benjamin's bullet" but this is not shown definitely, even submitter is not sure. Ends with a question, "How did he reload his gun so fast?" Because he has extensive military experience. Because the shot may not have represented real time. Because his life depended on it. Because he may have had a second gun. If submitter does not know these things for sure, how can this possibly be a valid mistake?

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Benjamin is saying goodbye and asking Susan to speak to him, Charlotte (standing beside Susan) puts her hand on Susan's back. In the shots of Susan (from the front), the hand remains on the back throughout the scene. In the shots from behind her (showing Benjamin's face), the hand is not on her back. There are several back-and-forths.

Continuity mistake: In the scene when Benjamin's previously silent daughter runs to him - to say that she loves him and wants him to come back, there's a continuity error in the location of her pigtails. When the camera is at her back, they're behind her head and when the camera faces her, they're in front over her shoulders.

Factual error: When Benjamin is handing a store clerk some money, he is giving him a $5 bill with Abraham Lincoln on it. This happened more than 80 years before he was president. And they didn't even use dollars during the Revolutionary war. They would have used British pounds.

More mistakes in The Patriot

Susan Martin: Papa! Papa, don't, I'll say anything! Please, papa, I'll say anything you want, tell me what you want me to say and I'll say it... Papa please don't go.

More quotes from The Patriot

Trivia: At the beginning of the movie when Benjamin is taking the children to Aunt Charlotte's house in Charleston, there is a woman on the street that does not move, and wearing a big hoop dress. She is there to hide the fire hydrant on the street underneath her dress.

More trivia for The Patriot

Question: Who was the baby in Charlotte's arms in the closing scene? Why was the baby not alluded to previously?

Answer: At the end of the film, it is implied that Charlotte and Benjamin Martin have married and had a child together. It wasn't alluded to earlier because it is meant to show that a person's life can start over, even after tragedy and loss.

raywest

Answer: Additionally, in the film Charlotte says to Benjamin "I am not my sister," alluding that they were different people as Benjamin gets closer to her. As colonials were religious given the time, in the Bible in Leviticus 18:18 it says "do not take your wife's sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living." Since his wife was dead, this no longer applied and they believed in starting over, as the above post states.

More questions & answers from The Patriot

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