Mel Gibson and war movies go together seamlessly, with the massive-scale combat of Braveheart and the dramatization of the Battle of Ia Drang in We Were Soldiers just two examples. In 2016, Gibson took to the director’s chair to deliver the religious-themed World War II movie Hacksaw Ridge, which debuted at the Venice International Film Festival and immediately caught the positive attention of critics.
Collider’s own review from the time called Hacksaw Ridge a “fascinating picture that doesn’t have a clear answer on what it means to be a non-combatant in the middle of combat,” which went on to win two Academy Awards from six nominations. With his work having spanned many eras of warfare, from the battle for Scottish Independence to World War II, you won’t be surprised to learn that Gibson was the central star of one of the most ambitious American Revolution epics of the 2000s, directed by Independence Day filmmaker Roland Emmerich.
Of course, we’re talking about The Patriot, a historical drama with a near-three-hour runtime starring Gibson as war veteran Colonel Benjamin Martin. The film also features Heath Ledger, just eight years before his untimely death, and Harry Potter‘s Jason Isaacs in one of the best villainous turns in his career. The film earned a trio of Academy Award nominations, missing out on prizes in Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Sound. 26 years later, The Patriot is an unlikely streaming success, officially ranking as one of the ten most-streamed movies on Peacock in the U.S., at the time of writing. The most-watched movie on the platform is currently Steven Spielberg‘s cinema-altering blockbuster Jaws.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Was ‘The Patriot’ a Box Office Hit?
Gibson is no stranger to box office success, but he’s also no stranger to a wince-inducing theatrical flop (here’s looking at the 2025 action thriller Flight Risk). The Patriot was perhaps neither, although it leans closer to the latter category, earning just $215 million against a reported budget of $110 million. Split between a domestic haul of $113 million and a further $102 million earned from overseas markets, the film was the worst-performing of three movies from Gibson in 2000, which also included the Oscar winner Chicken Run, and the romantic comedy What Women Want, directed by Nancy Meyers.
The Patriot is available to stream now on Peacock. Stay tuned to Collider for more of the latest streaming stories.
