10 Films Inspired By Real Life Events (That Never Actually Happened)

Whilst the American Revolutionary War definitely did happen, that did not stop the studio behind The Patriot from taking certain liberties with history at large, and the personal tales of the characters the film focused on.

Oh and shock-horror, Mel Gibson is in yet another historically inaccurate film.

Gibson's character, Benjamin Martin, is an amalgamation of half a dozen historical figures who fought in the war - not all of whom had particularly good reputations, but as much as the film tried to balance this out, it still didn't stop historians complaining.

Francis Marion was a militia leader known as " The Swamp Fox", a notorious rapist and racist who hunted Native Americans for fun and just so happened to be the main basis for Benjamin Martin. Historians took issue with this as the character of Martin - although flawed, was shown to be the hero of the setting, whilst the villain of the piece was a child-killing British Major that was a total character-assassination of the real-life officer he was based on.

There was further criticism with the portrayal of the readiness of the British in the film to commit atrocities, with one scene in particular where the British burn an entire church filled with unarmed women and children being slammed for never having happened, and accusations aimed at director Roland Emmerich of misrepresenting history.