Colonel Tavington, in a nutshell.

At the risk of rendering this blog positively poisonous with dripping testosterone, I'm going to put in a plug for this Colonel Tavington Fanvid. It's made from the best bits of the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot, and by best bits I mean all the bits that Colonel Tavington appears in.



It's by BlackCat1307 and is called, appropriately enough, So Naughty.


Tavington, as all connoisseurs of Bad Guys know – or will eventually know, if I have anything to do with it – was a previous incarnation of Jason Isaacs, the man behind luscious Lucius Malfoy. Tavington is supposedly just as eevil – I think he's supposed to be irredeemably amoral – but due to a miscalculation by the scriptwriter (or more likely some clever blue pencillings by a besotted scriptgirl), he eventually arrived on celluloid with a backstory justification for his actions and sufficient ongoing goads from his sneery superiors to appear as the wronged party. Jason Isaacs brings a great hairstyle, fabulous poise, regal looks and all-around stylishness to a man I suppose was originally designed to twirl his mustaches and get people to throw gum wrappers at the screen.

There's a wonderful review of the movie here at Doc M's Silver Whistle site:
Will just snapping into action and cutting loose with sabre in one hand, pistol in the other, while looking magnificently Byronic: hair streaming to his shoulders, and chest delectably bare... ("A sweet disorder in the dress...")
Marg said she couldn't believe they'd intentionally given what she called "such an obvious titillation scene" or "droolfest" to the nominal villain... (Snurk!).
You'd think they wanted the whole female contingent of the audience to switch sides, wouldn't you? First, he looks gorgeous, then he buckles a good swash, then he gets damaged, and we all want to nurse him back to health. (Well, I suppose the Heath Ledger fans don't *g*)!

Be warned that when it comes to the American Revolution, Doc M – like many Tavington fans – is not afraid to cheer for the redcoats, particularly since the 'good guy' is played by Mel Gibson, and he admits to slicing up his enemies into small pieces whilst still alive before sending the bits sorted into piles back to their families. (I am not making this up.) Normally when I mention a YouTube video I say something about how it's fine to do so because it won't hurt the sales of the full-length DVD. In this case, I can let on that in my opinion all the bits of The Patriot one really needs to see are in the video. The only reason to watch the full DVD is to find out why so many people hate Mel Gibson's character so much.

If this brings out in you a surge of patriotism and a desire to tell me about Banastre Tarleton, no need. I already know all about Ban (as I call him). He was a little sweetie in many respects, but his highly fictionalized counterpart William Tavington is the one who stole my heart.