‘Patriots Day’: America at Its Most Resilient and Unwavering

Sgt. Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg) helps to find the perpetrators in the Boston Marathon bombing in "Patriots Day." Lionsgate

R | 2h 13m | Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Action, History | 2017

The third of five collaborations between producer/leading man Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg, “Patriots Day” is arguably their finest collective effort to date.

Based on the nonfiction book “Boston Strong” by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge, “Patriots Day” is an action drama chronicling the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and its immediate aftermath.

Berg presents the action in quasi-documentary style (frequent jittery camera work and “found footage”). The movie is also augmented with actual news stock and smartphone still and video photography captured by witnesses present at the event.

Mark Wahlberg (L) and director Peter Berg on the set of "Patriots Day." Lionsgate

Boston native Wahlberg stars as Sgt. Tommy Saunders, a cop with a bum knee currently in the doghouse by his bosses for unspecified reasons. He’s promised a return to regular duty if he works the perceived cream puff (read: no responsibility) gig monitoring the marathon finish line. His co-workers rib him—mostly because he’s required to wear a lime-green neon “crossing guard” vest. Saunders, cordially, but with attitude, lets it roll off his back.

Superb Preamble

Berg and his two co-writers were beyond wise to wait until nearly the 30-minute mark of the movie to depict the two bombings. Along with Saunders’s character, Berg includes a superbly constructed extended opening sequence, where others who are figuring into the bigger picture later on start their day with no idea of what’s to come.

There are two married couples, one with a child, another without, an MIT campus police officer, a cop in the neighboring town of Watertown (J.K. Simmons), an Asian college student, Tommy’s nurse wife Carol (Michelle Monaghan), and radicalized Eastern European immigrant brothers Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze) and his malleable younger brother Dzhokhar (Alex Wolff).

Watertown, Mass. cop (J.K. Simmons), in "Patriots Day." Lionsgate

In another brilliant move, Berg captures the two bombs exploding in real time, 12 seconds apart, as observed by Saunders. This distant, less-is-more approach only increases the dread, uncertainty, and cruel randomness of the acts themselves. There’s no slow-mo, no distorted visuals, and no swelling backing score—just the event itself from a distant eyewitness perspective.

For the next 30 minutes, the narrative plays out like the opening salvo from “Saving Private Ryan.” It is total mayhem—complete bedlam. EMP and police are racing to rescue and evacuate the wounded while dealing with onlookers and participants of the marathon who are still unclear about what has happened.

I can’t imagine the lengths Berg and his production team went through to recreate and choreograph such a complicated undertaking. Their work lent the film palpable authenticity and immediacy without it all looking staged.

Full-Tilt Procedural

From this point forward, “Patriots Days” is a full-tilt police procedural, and it continues to move along as a you-are-there, fly-by-the-seat type of affair. The governor of Massachusetts (Michael Beach), Boston police chief (John Goodman), Boston mayor (Vincent Curatola), and an FBI agent (Kevin Bacon) swoop in and take over the investigation.

(L–R) FBI agent (Kevin Bacon), Sgt. Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg), and Boston Chief of Police (John Goodman) track the bombers in “Patriots Day.” Lionsgate

Because Saunders knows the lay of the land best, he’s called on to assist in identifying the locations likely to have captured the best footage showing the perpetrators. The sheer volume of video footage was estimated to have been more than 8,000 total hours. Considering the microscopic time frame with which to work, it’s amazing the Tsarnaev brothers were identified so relatively fast.

‘Truth Is Stranger ...’

Even after they knew they had been discovered, the Tsarnaevs remained in Boston when they should have gone on the lam. They compound the issue by botching the theft of a pistol from the MIT officer. Then they follow it up by carjacking an SUV owned by the Asian student to whom one of them brags about carrying out the bombing. These guys did everything they could to get caught.

In my 2023 Epoch Times review of “American Manhunt: the Boston Marathon Bombing,” I point out the redundancy of content in the documentary series; the series took nearly three hours for what could have been accomplished in two-thirds the time.

While taking more than two hours here, the filmmakers took full advantage of every second without any hint of narrative repetition. Berg chose to not include details of the Tsarnaev’s upbringing, and it was a smart move. Their choice to murder innocent people in the name of “religion” is all we need to know.

Many Boston-area residents (and critics) felt the movie was made too soon after the event and complained about the fact that Saunders was a fictional composite character. I understand these complaints, as they hit close to home, but I don’t agree with them.

Having an actor such as Wahlberg play a fictional lead in an otherwise true story is not unusual, and in this instance, it only enhances the impact of the movie. Every event depicted in “Patriots Day” actually happened in the manner presented. For most audiences, that’s more than enough.

The movie is available on home video and to stream on Fandango, Amazon Prime Video, and Netflix.

‘Patriots Day’ Director: Peter Berg Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, John Goodman, Michelle Monaghan, J.K. Simmons MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 2 hours, 13 minutes Release Date: Jan. 13, 2017 Rating: 4 stars out of 5

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