Fl4viusAetius

Sons of Liberty (2015)

An Enjoyable Insult to History

I love how many of the people leaving positive reviews are telling the rest of us to calm down, as if we are wrong to feel the way we do. The American Revolution is a fascinating, incredibly compelling story, filled with complex and nuanced characters. Sons of Liberty prompts a certain amount of rage from me because it deprives people of that compelling story, presenting viewers instead with waste-of-time romance sequences, cheap dialogue, and Hank Schrader wearing a Ben Franklin costume while describing the thought of 13 United Colonies as, and I quote, "a crazy idea".

To be fair, I knew what I was in store for within the first five minutes of the first episode, when Samuel Adams singlehandedly knocks two or three redcoats down a staircase, escapes onto the rooftops, and the show turns into Assassin's Creed.

This show was clearly written by people who have no idea who the Founding Fathers really were, and who clearly never even bothered to do any research beyond glancing quickly at wikipedia.

Part of why Washington wore his old militia uniform to the Continental Congress is because he was ambitious enough to desire command of the Continental Army, but unwilling to directly ask for it, because one of his greatest strengths was his ability to mask his ambition with a cloak of humility. But in Sons of Liberty, Washington is willing to foam at the mouth, scream at Congress, announce that he is leading an army north, and storm out of the room.

Benjamin Franklin is shown womanizing, which is spot on, but why does he have to be so serious in his other scenes? Ben Franklin was known for having a light touch, a detached playful attitude towards life, and a love of indulging in the world's pleasures. Instead, Sons of Liberty delivers us Hank Schrader wearing a wig, acting like Hank Schrader wearing a wig. It's not Dean Norris's fault. Couldn't they have at least given Dean some halfway intelligent lines? Ben Franklin was smart. Shouldn't he at least sound smart? Nah. That would be a "batshit crazy idea."

John Adams, in this show, exists only to lick Sam Adams's balls.

Why does General Gage have to be depicted as a sadistic sociopath? Does the show think we are so simple-minded that we need to completely demonize the British to still root for the underdog? The American Revolution was a civil war. Americans fought Americans. Families were torn apart. There were no good guys and no bad guys, there were neighbors murdering each other. Sons of Liberty seems to think we are incapable of comprehending the truth, and that instead we need watered down black-and-white scenarios, which is probably also why the issue of slavery almost never surfaced in the dialogue.

Why did Joseph Warren need to have an affair with Gage's wife? I already know the answer to this one: the tryst existed in the storyline solely to add sex to the show, and to add unnecessary weight to Warren's death, because apparently getting shot in the head, bayoneted, stripped, and mutilated isn't enough. It only matters if someone was in love with him and loses him. Basic.

This show angered me greatly. And yet, I kept watching, and continued all the way to the end, where I smirked at the Betsy Ross flag which someone must have time traveled forward to 1777 to retrieve.

It wasn't all bad. I am giving it 2 stars instead of the 0 stars it deserves, because despite the awful writing and characterization, at least the world LOOKED realistic. Characters were grubby. The costumes looked genuine. The cinematography and editing were decent. The sets were very well done.

Visually, the show is very appealing, but without the support of writers who know how to write, without writers who care about history, Sons of Liberty's finished product is a shiny object with a hollow, misleading, unsatisfying interior.