Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Religious Music & Entertainment
Mark Wahlberg’s ‘Patriots Day’ Documents the Boston Marathon Bombing

Mark Wahlberg’s ‘Patriots Day’ Documents the Boston Marathon Bombing

Last updated on: December 21, 2016 at 10:26 am by Kate O'Hare

Mark Wahlberg’s ‘Patriots Day’ Documents the Boston Marathon Bombing 2016-12-21T10:26:50-08:00 Kate O'Hare

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Up front, let me say that “Patriots Day” is a well-made, exciting film.

Produced by, and starring, Boston-area native (and devout Catholic) Mark Wahlberg, and directed by Peter Berg, it tracks the events leading up to the April 15, 2013, bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and continues through the massive manhunt for the bombers.

As much as possible, the filmmakers used the original locations, and the film ends with interviews with the real people involved, including police, local officials and survivors.

The Boston Globe is of the opinion that the film is unnecessary.

If you’re from around these parts, you already know whether you want to see “Patriots Day.” If you’d like to pay money to watch our local strength and valor celebrated, the movie would have to be terrible to keep you away. If the very idea of a Hollywood dramatization of the 2013 Marathon bombing strikes you as exploitative, it would have to be a four-star classic to suck you in.

Peter Berg’s movie, starring Mark Wahlberg in an invented role, is neither great nor gawdawful. It’s professionally made, slickly heartfelt, and is offered up as an act of civic healing. At best, it’s unnecessary. At worst, it’s vaguely insulting.

I’d tend to attribute this to local sentiment, if I hadn’t seen HBO’s recent “Marathon: The Patriots’ Day Bombing” documentary. At times, it and the movie are almost indistinguishable, except that the documentary is real — with a lot of security-camera footage (some of which is duplicated, almost frame for frame, in the movie).

What “Patriots Day” adds is scenes depicting the lives of some of the victims — especially surviving newlyweds Patrick Downes (Christopher O’Shea) and Jessica Kensky (Rachel Brosnahan) and murdered MIT Officer Sean Collier (Jake Picking) — and a composite police character, played by Wahlberg, who manages to be at all the major sites of the story.

We also go into the home of Tamerlan (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff), the jihad-inspired, Kyrgyzstan-born brothers who planted pressure-cooker bombs stuffed with nails and ball bearings in the crowd on Boylston Street.

The feature film follows the sequence of events in the immediate aftermath of the attack, involving local police and the FBI, that led to the identification of the Tsarnaev brothers. It adds the tense interrogation of Tamerlan’s steely American-born wife (played by “Supergirl” star Melissa Benoist).

The brothers go on the run, ending in a spectacular firefight in a Boston suburb that leads to Tamerlan’s death, and then a tense standoff with the injured Dzhokhar.

What the feature film lacks, and the documentary offers, are the details of the survivors’ agonizing road to recovery. The demands of drama probably precluded adding these, but it reminds me of something a writer mentor once told me, that the story is as much in the ripples as in the rock. Unfortunately, most movies are just about the rock.

But this is a heckuva rock.

While it’s obvious that Wahlberg’s character, Sergeant Tommy Saunders, is the fictional creation among the real people, he does provide the filmmakers a chance to channel a lot of emotions felt by different people. There are also moments of humor woven in, as tough-minded Bostonians deal with the chaos around them (I particularly liked one no-nonsense local cop who refused to budge from her vantage point for the FBI).

One thing I did appreciate about “Patriots Day” is it doesn’t yield to the politically correct temptation to romanticize or soften the Tsarnaev brothers, or play them as victims. They are the villains of the piece, period.

This stands in contrast to Rolling Stone, which ran a cover photo of Dzhokhar that made him look like the dreamy-eyed lead singer of a boy band.

In factual terms, “Patriots Day” hews closely to the official timeline, even if Berg may have jazzed up one event.

Said the Boston Globe:

And Saunders is right there in the thick of the climactic firefight in Watertown that resulted in the death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze) and that, contrary to reports, is staged as a midsize apocalypse, with cars detonating in fireballs.

But a reporter on the scene did say that bombs were thrown, so, hey, it’s a movie.

The biggest missing element is eight-year-old victim Martin Richard, a Catholic boy who was killed on the scene. His parents didn’t want to be depicted, so Berg respected that. He exists in the film only as a small body covered in a sheet, with a police officer standing vigil, so he won’t be alone.

That’s sufficient to get me all weepy.

If you watched the HBO film, you may not need to go see “Patriots Day.” But for everyone else, it will take you back to yet another day — one of far too many — when radical Islamists seek to destroy lives, cultures, freedom and peace of mind.

In the press conference for “Patriots Day,” the real Kensky was asked how she’s managed to survive her medical ordeal. Her answer, praising the help of nerve-pain medication and antidepressant Cymbalta — she even offered to do a commercial — was honest and real.

Like Kensky and the other survivors, we can bounce back from these brutal attacks, but they will tear away pieces of us, and they will leave scars. And, of course, that’s what the terrorists want most.

“Patriots Day” opens in Los Angeles, New York and Boston on Wednesday, Dec. 21, and nationwide on Jan. 13. Click here for tickets.

(“Patriots Day” contains language — almost immediately, in fact — but no sexual content; and an expected level of violence, considering the subject matter.)

Image: Courtesy CBS Films/Richard family

Don’t miss a thing: head over to my other home at CatholicVote and like my Facebook page; also like the Patheos Catholic FB page to see what my colleagues have to say.

Previous Post

December 20, 2016

'Passengers': Do Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence Feel the Unmentioned Hand of God?

Next Post

December 26, 2016 'The Criterion Collection' Presents Kurosawa's 'Dreams'

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books breaking news digital media Faith practice food interview jane the virgin media movies music NFL Pope Francis Showbiz 101 social media sports technology television Uncategorized video

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz