It's 1776. France and England are in perpetual war. After the Declaration of Independence, British troops land in New York. Fur trapper Tom Dobb (Al Pacino) had lost most of his family. All he has left is his boat and his son. The revolutionaries confiscate his boat and they promise to pay him in gold in two weeks after the war is to end. His son Ned unwittingly signs up for the revolution and Tom is forced to join up to protect him. Daisy McConnahay (Nastassja Kinski) is the rebellious daughter of a rich New York family. She is drawn to the revolution and rebels against his war profiteering father. Sgt. Maj. Peasy (Donald Sutherland) is the ruthless English soldier who fights alongside his drummer boy son.The son is the brattiest of brats. Pacino is Italian to his core. There is no way to alleviate that and his natural accent doesn't help. Kinski is foreign in her accent and annoyingly arrogant in her rebellion. Of course, her family is horribly selfish. The British are cartoonish. The revolutionaries don't start off well either. It's an ugly world overall. The only compelling work comes from Sutherland who knows how to play his uncomprising role without becoming a caricature. It is interesting to depict the rebellion start with such an ugly mob. Usually they're more noble than that. That has to be a part of the reason why this movie bombed so badly. There are also other pressing problems.It's notable that the black actors barely speak a word. I'm sure the movie is trying to say a little something about slavery. In Philadelphia, the slaves are rising up as freedom rings out all around them but it's left confused. Obviously, none of them are freed in reality but it's not clear from the movie. I think the blacks being march off in the opposite direction is suppose to be them being sent into slavery in the south. I also have a problem with Pacino fighting off the two Indian scouts. It's barely believable and it would be easily solved if the friendly Indians arrive a minute earlier. They could help him kill the two Indian scouts. In addition, I don't understand why he doesn't go with his son at the end. He spends the entire movie rescuing his son but leaves him for the city life. That's stupid. I don't mind portraying the war as an ugly affair but this one is not that good.

At its sporadic relative best, Hugh Hudson's Revolution seems to aspire to becoming a work of pure texture and movement and evocation of time and place, prioritizing collective over individual experience; at such times it sometimes puts one in mind of the great and overlooked Peter Watkins. That's not necessarily helpful to the film as it stands though - Watkins would surely have rejected the big-star casting and the narrative contrivances, and would have found his way to a far more probing kind of authenticity (among so much else, the film doesn't have much sense of real labour, or of real pain), even while acknowledging its artifice. Obviously the film was largely shaped by more commercial considerations than that, but it's still disappointing that the makers couldn't have avoided the lame love story between the fur trapper who gets swept up by events (Al Pacino's Tom Dobb) and the child of privilege who abandons her family for the sake of becoming a figurehead of the revolution (Nastassja Kinski); or the over-reliance on Dobb's fierce love for his son as an all-consuming motivation and engine of personal transformation. The film presents the English as being grotesque either in their effeteness or else in their brutality, and invests heavily in the inherent moral superiority of the rebels, to the point of expunging any notion of exploitation of the indigenous people, or (I think) any reference to slavery: perhaps these simplifications can be interpreted partly as a function of one man's subjective experience (and the film certainly emphasizes that Dobb is illiterate and under-informed) but they mainly seem hollow and calculating. Revolution does acknowledge in its closing scenes that the new regime may primarily come to represent new means of exploitation and misrepresentation, but that's mainly for the purpose of stroking us with Dobb's new awakening and articulacy (which then in rapid order meets its primary reward, that of getting the girl). The nature of the film's failures is almost always interesting, but it seldom feels like a meaningful conversation with American history, nor with its present.

'Tom Dobb' (Al Pacino) and son arrive in New York harbor to be greeted by street urchin Annie Lennox.... Annie Lennox?.... who immediately conscripts Dobb's boat for the war effort, and then instructs an Army captain to give Tom a receipt for it. Apparently, American Army officers took orders from random tramps in the 18th century.Soon, Dobb meets 'Daisy' (Nasty Kinski) who berates Tom and his son for running away from a battle after the British begin blasting them with bits of chain-link fired out of a cannon. "I thought you might have stood your ground, Mr. Dobb", says Daisy. Fortunately Daisy's brashness didn't prompt Dobb to knock out all her teeth. Mostly boring Revolutionary War drama complete with time-filling digressions including a 'foxhunt' in which Dobb flees from a lace handkerchief-wielding English captain (Richard O'Brien) while tied to an effigy of "poor ol' Georgie Washington".Another Hollywood film which depicts the British people as evil incarnates. Do you ever wonder why Hollywood keeps doing that?

The Revolutionary War was waged here in the Americas'. Seeing this movie called " Revolution " directed by Hugh Hudson and written by Robert Dillon, one would expect a great outcome. However, I saw this film and as a Historian I expected so much more. The story begins in 1776 and continues to the end of the war. A father (Al Pacino) is visiting New York shortly after War has been declared. Straying away from his father, the son is inducted into the military, forcing the father to follow with the dubious promises of pay and compensation for his boat. Once fighting has been enjoined, they soon meet up with Sgt. Maj. Peasy (Donald Sutherland) a brutal , but very professional British soldier. From then onward, the two experience the confusing and often destructive effects of the war. Along the way, they are helped and sympathized by women of the revolution, like Daisy McConnahay (Nastassja Kinski). Unfortunately, the movie tests the limits of patience as our director includes scenes which should have been edited. The war becomes interesting with several easily recognized actors along the way, such as Robbie Coltrane and Graham Green, playing minor roles. Despite it's cumbersome length, the movie did have several realistic features, like the battle of Yorktown which were included in the final draft. Acting-wise, the cast made this movie and should be seen as most epics, over several nights. Good movie though. ****