St. Patrick: The Irish Legend (2000) (TV)

User Rating:

5.3/10   

Director:

Robert Hughes

Writers:

Martin Duffy (written by)
Robert Hughes (written by)

Release Date:

12 March 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Adventure | Fantasy

Plot:

A young Christian boy attends a druid worship that is attacked by invading Irish tribes. Taken captive...

Plot Keywords:

Character Name In Title | Actor Shares First Name With Character

Cast

Patrick Bergin	...	Patrick
Luke Griffin	...	Young Patrick
Alan Bates	...	Calpornius
Susannah York	...	Concessa
Malcolm McDowell	...	Quentin
Eamonn Owens	...	Benignus
Chris McHallem	...	Auxilius
Michael Caven	...	Iserninus
Stephen Brennan	...	Briain
Adam Goodwin	...	Brother Peter
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Peter Byrne	...	Ship Captain
Michael Carven
Ned Dennehy	...	Lucet Mael
Richard Gibson	...	Bishop of London
Maria Hayden	...	Nuala
Sean McDonagh	...	Young Man
Pat McGrath	...	Millihus
Emily Nagle	...	Young Nuala
Niall O'Brien	...	Longhaire
Ryan Smith	...	Young Brian
Alan Stanford	...	Paladius

Runtime:

100 min | Germany:89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Ireland

Company:

Fox Family Channel

Trivia:

'Alan Bates' was first asked to play Bishop Quentin.

A wonderful portrait of Ireland's Saint Patron.

St. Patrick is probably one of the best known saints in the Western World, and certainly America's most revered one, his shamrocks and greenery covering New York and other great cities on his day. But even those devote Irish who proudly parade in or out of uniform, will learn something about the man who brought the Gospel to Ireland, in this splendid biopic which takes Patrick as a young Christian Scot who is captured and taken to Ireland as a slave, only to fall in love with these heathen people, and dedicate his whole life to save them from paganism.

The film is supported by a splendid cast, but its principal merit is the sensible, unobtrusive way in which it mixes the human, heroic story of the man, with the necessary miracles of the saint, and his duel of prodigies with the heathen druids is casually inserted in the more factual story of his labours, not without catering to the Irish by depicting a rapacious "British church" in perhaps the only departure from strict historical truth, since Patrick lived long before the English considered themselves such. Which doesn't prevent Malcolm McDowell from adding another splendid villain to his gallery, as the ambitious and autarchic Bishop Quentin.