Patriots Day

So I love going on long plane rides because it is one of the few situations where I can find recently released movies for free and watch them with little to no distractions. There were two Mark Wahlberg/Peter Berg films that came out in 2016 that I wanted to check out and that was this film and Deepwater Horizon. I heard great things about both and both were on the plane movie menu, but I chose this one because the Boston Marathon bombing is just a topic I find more intriguing. If you've seen both, tell me which one you enjoyed more. I hope to watch Deepwater Horizon soon, but for now, here's my review of Patriots Day.

Patriots Day focuses on the events that occurred on April 13th, 2013 when two homegrown terrorists detonated two homemade bombs in the streets of Boston during the Boston marathon.

The movie focuses on the events that actually happened on that day, and then the ensuing manhunt for Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev, the two Kyrgyz terrorists responsible for the bombing. I read something that stated that the movie takes a blend of accuracy and a little bit of fiction, especially surrounding the movie's main character, a Boston Police Officer named Tommy Saunder (played by Mark Wahlberg).

Now Wahlberg I think has gotten a bit of crap due to this movie. He spouts off a lot saying things like if he could have prevented 9/11 if he was on the plane and other things that I think he is trying to be patriotic but he kind of comes off like a douche. It's not nearly that bad in Patriots Day, but I understand the criticism when people say that you've got this really tragic but at the same time uplifting story about perseverance... and then you've got Mark Wahlberg kind of trying to hog the spotlight.

I don't think it's that bad and all that aside, it is actually a pretty good performance turned in by Wahlberg.

Whether or not his intentions in this movie were misplaced or not, you can tell that this is a movie that Wahlberg is passionate about. It comes out in his performance and while there might be some scenes that seem a little bit like they're action movie-fying this tragic event, I think I understand why they created this character to connect the events of the film. The bombing and the manhunt take place over a large span of area and it involves different characters. Not all these characters were in the same place at the same time so it makes sense to have a character that ties it all together.

Now I was aware of the criticism of his movie prior to watching the film so I spent a lot of the movie questioning if this was just Mark Wahlberg trying to make himself an action hero or not, and again, I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be. It's there, but not to a level where it's offensive.

I do think that there were other characters in this movie that they could have focused on. John Goodman plays the Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, Kevin Bacon plays the head of the FBI investigation, Richard DesLauriers. Michael Beach plays Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. JK Simmons plays the Police Sergeant of Watertown. And those are just some of the big name actors and their roles.

Jimmy O Yang plays Den Meng, the young man who go car jacked by the Tsarnaevs. Alex Wolff and Themo Melikidze play the Tsarnaevs. Even Melissa Benoist, Supergirl, plays the wife of the older brother.

It's a really solid cast and yeah, could the focus have been more on them as opposed to Marky Mark playing a fictional police officer who just happened to be involved with all of the events.

Regardless of who the movie should have been focused on or not, there are some really spectacularly shot scenes in this movie. When the bombs go off and the panic ensues it is all really powerful. I'd be lying I didn't find it hard to watch at times.

Even after the blast, the manhunt is very exciting and suspenseful. There is a lot of payoff in that you see this horrific thing happen and you want nothing more than for the police to get these horrible pieces of shit.

But here's one thing about the Tsarnaev brothers that was a little bit difficult with this film.

These guys had to have been difficult people to portray because their motives are pretty rudimentary and kind of difficult to really grasp. Even the younger kid who has seen been sentenced to death in Massachusetts has stated that he was recruited by his older brother and he was the real mastermind behind the plan. They say that they were motivated by their radical muslim faith and that they were trying to defend Muslims who were being killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They don't really delve into that at all in this film and these two are probably portrayed as two of the dumbest terrorists ever. After they detonate the bomb, they just go home and chill for a couple days before heading off to New York to carry out more attacks. And they barely leave Boston before they muck it all up and end up getting into a firefight with pretty much all of the Boston and Watertown police department. THEN the younger brother ends up hiding in a boat that gets absolutely surrounded by police officers. It's a wonder these two didn't blow themselves up.

Now I don't think that Alex Wolff and Themo Melikidze do a bad job in their roles. They're not bad actors at all and again, it had to have been difficult roles for them. I'm not knocking their performance, I'm more knocking how they were written. And even that I have a hard time doing because it's very likely that that was what really happened and these pieces of shit were just dumbasses too.

And here's the thing about this film. I understand the criticism of Mark Wahlberg in this film because even though he gives a great performance, it's when this movie doesn't focus on him that it gets good. Maybe it's the fact that I knew his character was fictional, but there are some really powerful and genuine moments in this film and they're usually ones without Mark Wahlberg.

There's a point where they are debating on whether or not its a good idea to release the pictures to the public. There's the part where the younger brother is finally caught. There's the entire scene where the bombs go off and people are legitimately afraid because of the horrible thing that just occurred.

These moments speak so much more than Mark Wahlberg's monologue that he gives near the end of the film. That's not to say it isn't good, but I feel like there was a cut of this movie that ended on that monologue and it would have been so much less powerful than the real ending.

Rachel Brosnahan and Christopher O'Shea play a real life couple named Patrick Downes and Jessica Kensky. I didn't really mention them earlier because besides the fact that Rachel Brosnahan playing Rachel Posner in House of Cards, these two haven't really done anything in the past and there's not a lot that they do in this movie. They're not bad, they're just kind of in the first third of the film and they don't appear until the end.

But here's the reason I bring them up. At the end of the film, they actually stop the cinematic version of the story and bring out the real people who were involved. Deval Patrick, Richard DesLauriers, Ed Davis, and a lot of people who were really involved in this event come out and say what this event meant to them and what it means to the world today with the recent attacks in Europe and other places in the world. And they also talk about perseverance and the "Boston Strong" mentality that came out of this event and brought people together.

Well they also brought the real Patrick Downes and Jessica Kensky, two people who lost one or both of their legs after this horrible explosion. And I don't care how many speeches about togetherness Mark Wahlberg makes, nothing will compare to watching a guy who was injured during the Boston Marathon running it years later with a prosthetic leg and how he felt when he came down the same road that years before he had faced such a tragic event but he still preservers and crosses that finish line and it is just a beautiful example of the human spirit.

I'm sorry if I gave away the ending, but just watch this film for the ending alone. It is great and you will enjoy it.

Is Patriots Day a perfect movie? No. I guess in the grand scheme of things in comparison with the best films of 2016, it doesn't really match up as much as I had hoped it would, but it still is a really great movie that I enjoyed immensely. Peter Berg definitely has had a little bit of a checkered filmography with missteps like Hancock and Battleship, but this movie definitely makes me want to check out his work, especially his more recent films like Deepwater Horizon and Lone Survivor. Pretty much Mark Wahlberg seems to be his guy and I like what I've seen so far.

But what did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I don't know when I'm goping to watch Deepwater Horizon, but here's the trailer to hopefully get me more in mindset to watch it. Enjoy!