I have heard people criticize this movie as an exercise in hagiography. (Hagiography is a highly polished, idealized biography of a Saint.)
It is, but not of Patton. Rather it tends to be hagiography of Gen. Omar Bradley.
Patton is too often portrayed in a rather two dimensional way, where Bradley is portrayed as the true adult in the room shepherding George along. The historical record is far different.
Thanks. Somebody needed to say that here, although it's been said on the Wikipedia page for this movie. Then again, Bradley's memoir A Soldier's Story is credited as a primary source for the screenplay. As Winston Churchill put it, "History will be kind to me, for I shall be the one to write it!"
shareToo bad nobody read "War as I Knew it" for the movie. I found the one quote from the Wikipedia page worth transferring here.
"In a review of the film, Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall, who knew both Patton and Bradley, stated that 'The Bradley name gets heavy billing on a picture of [a] comrade that, while not caricature, is the likeness of a victorious, glory-seeking buffoon. ... Patton in the flesh was an enigma.'"
I think Marshall was suffering from the disease so common among the British - understatement.