It
is an official state holiday in Massachusetts, Maine, and Wisconsin,
commemorating the Battles of Lexington and Concord (they do not actually
celebrate it in Florida, but residents are encouraged to like it on Facebook).
By far, the best-known Patriot’s Day event is the Boston Marathon, considered
the world’s oldest marathon still held on an annual basis. It still is, even
after the storied competition was rocked by tragedy and terror in 2013. The
events of the Boston Marathon Bombing unfold from all angles in Peter Berg’s Patriots Day (trailer here), which opens today
in New York.
Unless
viewers really followed the case closely at the time, Berg and co-screenwriters
Matt Cook and Jeff Zetumer will greatly expand your perspective on the savage atrocity
and the resulting manhunt. One of our primary POV figures will be Sgt. Tommy
Saunders, a composite cop working the finish line as punishment for unspecified
disciplinary infractions. As first on the scene and a former beat cop for the neighborhood,
Saunders assumes a lead role in FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers’ (he’s
real) investigation.
Of
course, we know radicalized Chechen Islamist brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev
were responsible and they planned to plant more pressure cooker-style bombs in
Times Square. To get there, they carjacked Chinese national Dun “Danny” Meng,
whose story will be a major revelation for many.
In
addition to the cops and the terrorists, Berg follows several victims from the
start of that fateful Patriot’s Day and throughout the aftermath. Somehow, Berg
walks a perfectly fine line, depicting the grisly horror of the bombing, in no
uncertain terms, without risking charges of exploitation or bloody
shirt-waving. Even after watching the film, most of us civilians still will not
really know what it is like to respond to this kind of terrorist attack, but
this will be plenty close enough. Some real hardliners might object to the film’s
depiction of Dzhokhar as a puppet controlled by his Svengali-like older
brother, but their Islamist ideology is clearly and consistently portrayed (as
is the younger brother’s taste in hardcore porn).
Mark
Wahlberg is terrific, in a blue collar, slow-burning kind of way as Saunders.
Obviously, he steps into the role of a Boston copper with a lot of credibility,
but it is an honest performance that eschews showiness. Kevin Bacon nicely
channels his inner Jack Webb as DesLauriers and J.K. Simmons is well-grizzled
as Watertown Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese.
On
the other side of the law, Alex Wolff is eerily petulant and amoral as the
younger Tsarnaev, showing chops we’ve never seen from him before. However, the
breakout star of Patriots Day should be
Jimmy O. Yang, who sure-footedly covers the full emotional gambit as Meng.
Arguably, the most poignant scenes feature the immensely likable Jake Picking
and Lana Condor as MIT police officer Sean Collier and a robotics graduate
student. However, it must be noted Khandi Alexander comes out of nowhere,
delivering one of the greatest cameo performances since Alec Baldwin gave the
motivational speech from Hell in Glengarry
Glen Ross.
