After "Far and Away", this must be the most embarrassing film about Irishmen to come out of America. Apart from the sentimental and meandering storyline, the awful accents (which seemed to change from scene to scene) and stereotyped portrayal of the Irish soldiers made for a excruciating TWO hours. The political situation in Mexico, which is central to a clear understanding of the story, was never made clear and the soldiers seemed to be as much at sea about why they were fighting as are the audience watching them! The actors seemed to be totally lacking in conviction and the final scene where Marta is draped with the unit flag and made look like an old Irish Mammy is unintentionally hilarious in its bad taste. A film to avoid. Life is too short!

We have always been interested in U.S./Mexico history and relations, but somehow never knew about the St. Patrick's Batallion. I saw a comment somewhere that this movie 'glossed over' some of the American nasties, but we watched with growing horror as it became clear to us that not only was treatment of the Irish immigrants terrible within the U. S. Army, but the American attitude towards Mexico, Mexicans, and the Irish soldiers who went over to the Mexican side (with obvious good reason) was really terrible. Aside from the valuable history lesson, this is simply a good movie, with good acting, and a gripping storyline. If you haven't seen it, go rent it!

First of all it was good to see a movie about this obscure portion of the history. Even in Mexico is little known the San Patricio's aid in the Mexican-American war. I've read some of the other user's reviews and I'm tired of listening that in the Mexican-American War the U.S. had better weapon and that Santa Anna was president. That's false. First read history books (both sides). Santa Anna was exiled at that time. He returns because the liberal party had won the control of the capital after a series of disastrous political and military conservative officer's governments just after the same Santa Anna want to start a monarchy-style government in late 1843, that was overthrown by the liberals that was overthrown by the conservatives in a series of uprisings from 1845 to 1846. He promises to the U.S. that he put and end to the war. He lies (partially because he was so BAD that actually helped the U.S. to win the war) and led the defense of the country. The Mexican military was exhausted by the series of uprisings from 1840-1846 and the government was in a "technical" bankruptcy, and the generals who led them were poor prepared and had an EGO from here to the center of the galaxy. That's why the artillery was bad served, and bad positioned. For example in one of the last battles of the war at the outskirts of Mexico city (Churubusco Battle) the defenders had to surrender because they had no ammunition. That's partially true. The defenders really had tons of ammunition but for another type of gun, that supposedly was destined for another army (the man in charge of the supplies never explain that fault, some historians argue that he thought that the army at Churubusco was a regular army, in reality was an army of volunteers with more older weapons). So the soldiers start to throw the bullets to the attackers with their hands!.

It is a movie...so I expect there to be embellishments--in plot, especially, amongst other things. The acting? Well, I am not a movie critic...it was passable, not great, not horrible--most of the acting did seem flat and non-dimentional, however, you are getting just a glimpse of a few (a very few) of the major characters. What I do like overall, is, the fact that someone attempted to make a movie about this era of American History, especially, due to its pivotal role that the Mexican-American War would play in the years following the conclusion.On the historical facts of the movie, well, it has errors: for example, the Americans seem to "out-number" the Mexican forces--and as we all know the average ratio was between 3:2 and 3:1, in favor of the Mexican Army, in all the battles--which could have made the movie more spectacular--for the "bad" Americans--if they can be called that--something that was latent but not overt. As others have pointed out, it also does have a "Mexican" bias, but this is due to the arrangement of the plot of the movie...concerning the San Patricios Companies of Foreigners. I personally thought the biases of the "named" characters (at least the Americans) were "historically" correct--despite any gaffes in acting. Zachary Taylor (James Gammon) had his "damn the consequences" attitude, and Winfield Scott (Patrick Bergen) was also "true" to the history. The "Anti-Catholic" (not just Anti-Irish) sentiment as portrayed by the junior officers and non-comms in front of the Colonel of the 5th US Infantry Regiment, is also in line with the time. It is a shame that they could not work in more of the major characters (and a few of the Civil War Generals--in their baptism of fire). We see Scott, Taylor and Harney; It would have been nice to see others like Santa Anna, David Twiggs, William Worth, etc. as well as maybe Jackson as an Artillery Lieutenant moving his guns forward at Churubusco to take on the San Patrico batteries or Grant moving his men of the 4th Infantry forward, or even Lee reconoitering a position. However nice this may have been, it was extraneous to telling the movie-maker's story, and it was not to be.Not every movie can be a "Gettysburg" calibre movie...but considering the "attention span" of my fellow countrymen (most would not endure a 4 hour movie--let alone the subject matter), this movie trys to be entertaining, as well as, historically "honest". I say, "bravo".