1970
170 mins
dir - Franklin J. Schaffner
stars - George C. Scott - Gen. George S. Patton Jr.
Karl Malden - General Omar N. Bradley
Michael Bates - Field Marshall Sir Bernard Law Montgomery
Ed Binns - Major General Walter Bedell Smith
Stephen Young - Captain Chester B. Hansen
Lawrence Dobkin - Colonel Gast

The scale of the film is very impressive, huge tank battles, aircraft, explosions and plenty of action are a running theme throughout which adds a lot to the movie and this action gives the film its exciting edge and stops the movie from becoming a dull character observation which is essentially what the movie is.

The film is obviously about General Patton, the American General responsible for some of the greatest alied victories of the Second World War and attempts to show what the man was really like and what motivated him to be such a great military leader. During the movie Patton's strengths and weaknesses, the flaws in his character, methods and decisions are all exposed and we are given a good insight into what the man was all about (whether the way that he was portrayed in the film was true to the real life character is another debate entirely)

The detailed portrayal of Patton, and the way that how the audience sees him differs as the movie progresses is what makes the film so good and one of the main reasons for the success of this is George C. Scott's performance. I had previously seen him in The Exorcist3 and thought that he completely sucked ass, but maybe this was because he was unfortunate to be in one of the worst movies I've seen, in Patton he is superb - he won the Best Actor Oscar but he refused to accept it.

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