The Patriot

The Patriot is a 1998 American action thriller film directed by Dean Semler. Starring Steven Seagal, the film is loosely based on the novel The Last Canadian by William C. Heine. Seagal's first direct-to-video film, it features him as a local doctor and former immunologist who races against time to find a cure for an active viral outbreak, the origins of which trace back to a militia leader who injected himself with a deadly virus. The film was released worldwide on July 10, 1998 and in the United States on February 6, 1999. Plot Near the town of Ennis, Montana, local doctor and former government research immunologist Wesley McClaren (Steven Seagal) who has an interest in herbal medicine and is also a weapons and self-defense expert, is called to a hospital when people start dying from an unknown but very deadly disease. He determines that the cause is a highly dangerous airborne virus and calls in a Biological Response team, who seal off the town while doctors start treating sufferers with a vaccine. Unfortunately for them, several have already died. The source of the virus is traced to a local self-styled rebel militia leader, Floyd Chisholm (Gailard Sartain), who has given himself up after a long siege and has been arrested on weapons charges. In court, having ingested the virus himself (believing that he also possesses the vaccine) he spits at the judge, and starts the rapid spread of the disease.