★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

This latest real-life retelling makes it a genre hat-trick for the Peter Berg-Mark Wahlberg duet, though the formula is showing signs of wear. Wahlberg stars as a composite character cop, Tommy Saunders, caught up in the events of the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013 and the subsequent manhunt.





Lone Survivor and tragic visual mastery of Deepwater Horizon, though the latter’s script issues have begun to take deeper root: Patriots Day tends to fall a tad on the flag-waving side. It may entirely depend on where you draw the line between solidarity and jingoism, but I think the film is at least somewhat self-aware enough to avoid such a potentially divisive realm of thinking. A steely Kevin Bacon plays FBI agent Richard DesLauriers, who impresses upon everyone the dangers of even indirectly mentioning the terrorist’s chosen faith in the immediate aftermath. As the attackers were not suicide bombers but remained at large for several days, this danger is doubly felt. I’ve so far held Berg in very high esteem after the eye-gouging nihilism ofand tragic visual mastery of, though the latter’s script issues have begun to take deeper root:tends to fall a tad on the flag-waving side. It may entirely depend on where you draw the line between solidarity and jingoism, but I think the film is at least somewhat self-aware enough to avoid such a potentially divisive realm of thinking. A steely Kevin Bacon plays FBI agent Richard DesLauriers, who impresses upon everyone the dangers of even indirectly mentioning the terrorist’s chosen faith in the immediate aftermath. As the attackers were not suicide bombers but remained at large for several days, this danger is doubly felt.





The film is equally conscious about the inherent coldness of situational recreations, which emerged as a necessity from day one – many felt the decision to make the film so swiftly following the tragedy was a step too far. As the mouthpiece for this disgust, Saunders is the only one to display signs of protest at when a reconstruction of the scene is required for forensic analysis, mere hours after the first blast.





The Happening or the beer-swigging dad in Transformers: Age of Extinction. Berg’s realist style continues to extend to the supporting faces on screen, too. Those introduced in various opening montages (a love-struck young couple, a bright-eyed police officer, a Chinese student) are people first, characters second. Wahlberg continues to shine as an everyman; though his characters in Berg’s previous movies were based on actual people, they still carried that sense of home-grown loyalty and indiscriminate anguish when their respective worlds collapsed. Saunders is a fictional person, but feels as real as Marcus Luttrell or Mike Williams, in dramatic contrast to the insufferable science teacher fromor the beer-swigging dad inBerg’s realist style continues to extend to the supporting faces on screen, too. Those introduced in various opening montages (a love-struck young couple, a bright-eyed police officer, a Chinese student) are people first, characters second.



