Paul Marotta via Getty Images Boston Marathon bombing survivors Patrick Downes and Jessica Kensky were initially turned off by the idea to help with the film.

Husband and wife Patrick Downes and Jessica Kensky were standing nearby one of the homemade bombs that went off during the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Both lost their left legs. Later, due to crippling pain, Kensky was compelled to lose her right.

The couple is now on the mend; Downes was able to run the marathon using a prosthetic in 2016, while Kensky is still undergoing surgeries at a Maryland military hospital. They have the support of family and medical professionals. But the decision to participate in a feature film about the terrorist attack that impacted their lives so severely was “very difficult,” Downes told The Huffington Post. The whole idea of “Patriots Day,” which stars Mark Wahlberg as a fictional Boston cop as the events of the week unfold, was off-putting.

“It didn’t seem like ‘us,’” Kensky said. Watertown Police Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese wasn’t sure, either. Pugliese was off-duty at the time of the shootout between suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Watertown, Massachusetts, but he managed to sneak up on the elder brother and tackle him to the ground.

“I thought, ‘Hollywood’s coming in and wants to make this big fictional account of it,’” Pugliese remembered. Dun Meng had concerns, too. Meng had stopped at the side of a road to send a text when the Tsarnaev brothers carjacked his Mercedes; he escaped when they parked at a gas station. Would people think it was too soon for a film treatment?

Still, they all agreed to hear the pitch ― if only “for the story of it,” in Kensky’s case ― which made all the difference. Each was eventually won over by the vision and message of the film described by Wahlberg, director Peter Berg and producer Michael Radutzky.

“I thought, 'Hollywood’s coming in and wants to make this big fictional account of it.'" Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese

Actors Rachel Brosnahan and Christopher O’Shea play Kensky and Downes while J.K. Simmons portrays Pugliese and Jimmy O. Yang steps into Meng’s shoes on screen. In the first 20 minutes, the film leans heavily on vignettes showing different Boston couples ― young MIT police officer Sean Collier (Jake Picking) flirts with a crush while Kensky and Downes mingle in bed with left legs resting outside their sheets ― often squeezing plenty of I-love-you’s between scenes.

At the marathon, though, suspense reigns. The first bomb goes off with a sharp blast, a sudden assault on the peaceful race that instantly devolves into smoke, debris, confusion and blood. Police officers and citizens bravely assist the wounded as authorities ― including John Goodman as Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and Kevin Bacon as FBI agent Richard DesLauriers ― decide what to do.

Berg takes special care to note the careful considerations made by authorities in the hours and days after the bombings. A team of analysts takes over a warehouse to comb through video footage of the event, but zeroing in on a pair of Middle Eastern suspects forces them to consider a potential rash of anti-Muslim hate crimes. Their manhunt stumbles into a Watertown shootout during which Tamerlan is killed and, finally, a boat parked in a neighbor’s backyard is found where Dzhokhar was later discovered alive.

Lionsgate Mark Wahlberg as fictional cop Tommy Saunders in "Patriots Day."

“Patriots Day” opened in a limited release Wednesday, with the finished product also having earned the support of several other Boston Marathon survivors and authority figures. Their first-person accounts appear in documentary-style interviews at the film’s end, lending legitimacy to the Hollywoodized story ― and the need to tell it less than four years after the event.

The sheer fact that real-life terrorist brothers would be portrayed on screen was enough to stir concerns. Would they be given a glamour treatment, as many claimed Rolling Stone thoughtlessly gave Dzhokhar on a 2013 cover of its magazine?

Tamerlan actor Themo Melikidze felt those concerns firsthand on set near Boston. Although Melikidze, a Georgian native, feels that including the brothers was a “necessary” part of the story the filmmakers wished to tell, the weight of his role didn’t escape him.

The actor spent time with Tamerlan’s boxing coach, watched video footage and read articles about the terrorist online in an attempt to not only master his mannerisms but figure out why Tamerlan would carry out such a violent act. His efforts resulted in stepping onto the set where the bombings would be reenacted and noticing the sudden hush of hundreds of extras. A police officer told the actor that just seeing his face made him want to “bash” his head. (It was “the weirdest compliment,” Melikidze said.)

Those still worried can rest assured: Screen time given to the brothers is dwarfed by that of first responders, law enforcement authorities, victims and Boston residents.

Wahlberg, himself a Boston native, has shared his fear that the film might be received poorly by his hometown, but stressed his personal connection to the tragedy. In an interview on AOL’s Build Series, he explained, “We wanted to tell this story and really show people what ‘Boston Strong’ means.”

To Kensky and Downes, Pugliese and Meng, the film is also meaningful in the face of continued terrorist plots in the U.S. and abroad.

“We wanted to tell this story and really show people what ‘Boston Strong’ means.” Mark Wahlberg

“I think there’s so many things to think about from the film as it relates to terrorism,” Downes said. “Why it happens, how it happens, how we’re supposed to respond, how we can respond better, how we can lift up the people killed and injured and celebrate their spirits, how we understand the role that religion plays in violence, and what kind of sense we make out of it.”

“While it’s a movie, it depicts something that society both here in America and across the world ― terrorism is a very real thing,” he concluded.

“It’s showing these terrorists that you might be able to punch us, but we’re going to get back up,” Pugliese said, “and we’re going to punch you down.”

“Patriots Day” debuts nationwide Jan. 13.