I thought Will Patton put in the best performance

His General Bethlehem villain was magnificent. I thought it was a pretty intense performance. In a way, it's a similar character to Tina Turner's Auntie Entity. Here you have a copy machine salesman who took part in a civil war, and then made himself a warlord. Just a regular guy, absent any specialized training, taking advantage of an apocalypse.

Will Patton gets across successfully to the viewer that he's not a stupid man, but a man of general knowledge, and also no intellectual genius either, although he's a man of philosophy anyway: "This country used to be great. Until the I Can'ts ruined it. You know what made this country great? I can."

His fundamentalist vision makes the Holnists evil, with racism and brutal barbarism, but it also makes a great villain. Bethlehem is my favorite character in the movie, I thought it was brilliantly acted. Especially compared to Costner, who delivered some of the worst lines and emotional delivery of his career: "No! It doesn't have to be this way!", or "You're really weird! You know that?"