The American equivalent of Lawrence of Arabia

The American equivalent of Lawrence of Arabia. For that reason, I just could not for the life of me get into Patton, and its hurts even more because this is a film I’ve been saving for the right time and wanting to see for years now. So much for that.

The sweeping and iconic opening monologue of Patton behind the American flag had me excited and what followed after that was an identical story and character piece that I’ve personally just seen better executed in Lawrence of Arabia. The story of a complex authority figure whose entire identity lies in his service, duty and power. Stripped of that, he’s left with nothing. It’s certainly a well-made film, with some of the shots and scenes of war genuinely looking like someone stood in the middle of all this combat and drew a renaissance painting, unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to salvage the film for me. I just didn’t find it as compelling as I thought it’d be and I found the way it used the newsreels to move the story forward at times to be very dull. George C. Scott really saves the film for me and there’s no other actor I could ever possibly imagine having taken this role. He IS Patton.

Sometimes you see a Best Picture winner and you just have that itch while you’re watching it that the only reason the film was made in the first place was to be just that. A guaranteed Best Picture winner, and Patton is certainly one of those films that just ticks all those boxes for me.