Law & Order (TV Series) Patriot (2002) User Reviews

Give us your tired, your poor, your terrorists

[Mrpalli77 · 8/10 · 19 November 2017]

Two policemen were out patrolling when an explosion took place in a building, broken all windows in the first floor. A casualty occurred, the tenant who lived in the apartment. He was from Middle Eastern descent and he worked at a local garage at minimum wage. Detectives were stunned when they figured out his bank account is well above his means: 89.000 $. Furthermore, he faked his ID and he came from Yemen. Some people living in the Big Apple holding a grudge against these Arab people and a former army officer (a decorated one, having received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his duty in Iraqi "Desert Storm") set up a team for tracing down potential terrorists or "sleepers" (a reporter and a translator in a wheelchair were the other members). Who are the real terrorists?

A matter pretty heartfelt at the time of the shooting, shortly after 9/11 attacks. Anyway what happened doesn't mean authority had the right to overcome people's privacy and citizens can't take on the role of judge, jury and executioner, as stated by McCoy at the trial.

The patriot

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 27 May 2022]

Have said in some of my reviews for the previous 23 Season 12 episodes that Season 12 was generally solid though none of the episodes reached classic 'Law and Order' standard (two almost did). There were two great episodes, "For Love or Money" and "Myth of Fingerprints" and most of the season saw episodes that were either pretty good and very good. Only "The Fire this Time", "DR 1-102" and "Oxymoron" disappointed, and they still weren't misfires.

"Patriot" is not a bad way to end the season at all. It's not a great episode and doesn't end Season 12 with a bang, which is slightly disappointing seeing as the season started off so well. It is still quite decent, though will agree that more could have been done with a hard-hitting, very personal, tough (especially considering the timing) and still relevant subject. A lot of the usual good things are here but also a few of the flaws that most of Season 12 had.

Beginning with the good, it is a slickly made episode, the editing especially having come on quite a bit from when the show first started (never was it a problem but it got more fluid with each episode up to this stage). The music is sparingly used and never seemed melodramatic, the theme tune easy to remember as usual. The direction is sympathetic enough without being too low key on the whole.

The script is generally taut, with little fat, and intelligent. The story does intrigue enough, the policing scenes are solidly done and the legalities are a lot more accessible and intriguing than in "Oxymoron". Most of the acting is very, very good, Sam Waterston dominating and Terry Serpico unsettles despite the role being on the obvious side. Love Briscoe and Green's chemistry.

Elisabeth Rohm looks bored and drained of life and never connects with the character or with Waterston. Once things become more complex and not what they seemed initially, the episode becomes a little over-complicated and could have done with a slowing down.

Did find the ending on the hasty side and the verdict for me was not easy to swallow. Do agree too that more could have been done with the subject, the episode does have tension but could have done with more emotion.

In conclusion, quite decent end to the season. 7/10.

Writers undermine their own plot line

[george-841 · 6/10 · 6 April 2013]

Airing the spring after 9-11 it's clear the writers of this episode want to cast some light on the impact of the homeland "war against terrorism" and the related notion that every American is a combatant in this very irregular armed conflict.

A Special Forces veteran investigates an Arab man with a suspicious background. He's an illegal immigrant, works a minimum-wage job involving learning how to drive a 16-wheeler, has $90,000 in the bank, disguises his name and background and makes calls to Arabic countries on a throwaway phone with references to "family" coming to visit soon, yet makes no effort to prepare for visitors. The veteran takes this as an imminent danger of an attack on NYC and blows up the Arab's building by tampering with the gas line.

The building has multiple units but only the suspected terrorist is killed. Here's where the writer's undermine their own efforts. The controversy behind this episode is supposed to be the argument that every American is a soldier in the war against terrorism and therefore justified in taking action against a terrorist. The writers do throw in the fact that this guy was indeed a terrorist, although the concluding evidence is not discovered until after his killing, further hurting the veteran's defense. But the real damage is done via the means the vet takes to kill "the enemy." Blowing up a multi-unit building in Manhattan, even if he is lucky enough only to kill his target, is not an honorable way to fight. I think the writers did this on purpose to blur the fundamental ethical question of how America needs to deal with "terrorists in our midst." The jury convicts the vet of murder, after 5 hours of deliberation, leading McCoy to conclude that there were initially some votes for acquittal. IRL I think there would have been a lot better chance of acquittal if the killing had been done face-to-face by gunfire, without risking innocent bystanders, especially where the plot makes clear the deceased was indeed an undercover terrorist.

Too bad the writers didn't have the stomach to lay out the fundamental moral issue more plainly.

Pretty Strong Episode

[bkkaz · 9/10 · 8 May 2023]

Patriot comes late in the original run of Law and Order, when the debates about social issues and current events began to tip toward being pedantic rather than dramatic. Here is a question that resonated then and resonates now: If the enemy is terrorists who doesn't represent a traditional military, how do you stop them?

Now, keep in mind that the FBI -- then and now -- have warned the U. S. has more to fear from domestic terrorists -- hate groups and so-called militias, for example -- than from foreign terrorists. And members of those groups have infiltrated both the police and military that this episode sees as the defenders of our freedom.

Law and Order would on occasion tackle those kinds of terrorists, too.

In this episode is the age-old suspicion of the other, the immigrant, the face not like our own. America has always struggled with this issue, and this time, it's anyone who looks "Middle Eastern" who is the target.

As you might expect, a group of self-appointed patriots, some military veterans, decide to strike first when they discover someone from Yemen who they believe is cooking up some kind of attack. He has tens of thousands of dollars in his bank account, and somehow circumstantially this all makes him fit the profile of a terrorist. When he turns up murdered, it's now up to Sam the Eagle and crew to put them behind bars.

But is the case so cut and dry?

The acting here is top notch, of course. Even some actors, like Tony Serpico, who turn up later in the maudlin SVU, is still giving natural performances that so shine brighter than soap opera antics of the other series. But special attention should be given to Leo Burmester, whose defense attorney, Hastings, is exactly the sort of southern fried butterball who talks out of both sides of his mouth without hesitation. You hate him for what he does rather than the mustache twirling silliness of more contemporary foils in the Law and Order franchise.

I won't reveal too much about the ending. It may or may not move you, as it may seem where things are obviously headed, but it speaks to both our paranoia and the notion of privilege over whose fears are allowed to culminate in violence.

If it looks like a terrorist, smells like a terrorist....................

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 25 September 2020]

An explosion takes out a small apartment building, fortunately when all but one but one tenant was away. The bomb was a sophisticated device that only a good explosive expert would know how to rig.

The case doesn't turn out to be so simple as more and more an more evidence shows some mighty fishy background for the victim For a fact he was using an alias. For a fact he was from the Middle East.

The perpetrator Terry Serpico is a former Green Beret who got a lot of information from a blog run by David Alan Baker, What is the extent of either's culpability? Do we give into vigilantism when its tough?

Tune in to see what the jury verdict is.

Fundamental error based on a lack of understanding

[nicknelson-32447 · 2/10 · 7 February 2017]

Haddad was identified as a Shia Muslim.

Every single attack in the West including 9/11 has been done by Sunni Muslims. Not a single attack by the Shia, not one ever.

The Imam at the mosque Briscoe and Green visited would certainly have made this point - Shia and Sunni each have their own separate mosques.

Indeed Sunni Islamists hate the Shia, who they regard as idolaters, even more than they hate the West.

The US cannot hope to formulate any kind of sensible policy towards Islamism until Americans understand this very basic fact about the schism in Islam.