81% on Rotten Tomatoes
Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed, and recommended by Chloe;
Watch it in cinemas;
Low-energy entertainment
Watch it if you: Are interested in the Boston Marathon bombings;
Are a fan of the Mark Wahlberg/Peter Berg duo;
Want an engaging and non-stop thrilling film
Patriots' Day, April 15th, 2013, two brothers set off two bombs at the annual Boston Marathon. Three people died from this bombing, and several were injured, with many needing to have their limbs amputated. What followed was an intense man hunt after the two brothers, with intelligence agencies crawling through surveillance footage and trying to garner any information they could to capture these two terrorists.
Firstly, I have to say the trailer for this movie is absolutely terrible. I don't know who made the trailer, but it does no justice to the film, which I actually really liked. I thought it was a great film about the strength of love and unity in a time of fear and hatred.
We all remember the news about the Boston Marathon bombing, and it was a shock to all of us.
I was worried this would be an action-packed and purely-cash-grab sensationalised flick, but then I remembered watching Deepwater Horizon and how great (and importantly, accurate) that was.
There are some scenes in this movie that seem so unbelievable it sort of took me away from the movie, and detracted from the storyline, but when I went home and checked it out, I realised that they were pretty accurate to the real life events, which just goes to show how crazy and insane real life can get sometimes.
I don't know how to approach spoilers with this movie, since it is based on real life events that only happened recently, but I guess I'll approach it as if it were a normal movie and stick to vague references to things.
The unfolding of the movie was done pretty well. At first, there's a quick introduction of some of the characters and real-life people who were involved, just to show us how human and real they are. Then there's the marathon and the bombing, and then the progressive manhunt that goes down.
Similar to Deepwater Horizon, you never feel bored when watching Patriots Day. Everything shown is interesting, relevant to the story, and exciting. Even though it's not non-stop action, the story is non-stop and engaging. They also mix in some actual footage from the whole thing (e.g. surveillance cameras, etc.), and at the end they have interviews of some of the people who were involved, which I think was a really nice touch to cap it off.
Of course, Mark Wahlberg is the character who is at every crucial point in the film, but I don't think his actions and character movement were too forced. There's really only one scene where it's questionable if he should even be there, let alone if he should be the only guy in a room full of experts who knows anything helpful. That was a huge stretch and it was frankly a bit ridiculous. For the rest of the movie, though, he wasn't really in the limelight. He was just sort of there for all the events that unfolded, and provided us with eyes for all the events. It also let other characters shine, such as J.K. Simmons' role.
I was interested in how they would portray the two brother terrorists, since it's a very sensitive area. The younger brother was actually very interestingly portrayed. On one hand, you can see how brainwashed he has been by his brother, and on the other hand you see that he himself is a maniac and has a lot of strong and radicalised views on the American government. However, in everything, you can see that he is just like an average American teenager. He goes to uni, he's stoned 24/7, he wants to drive cooler cars, he's a pretty successful pot dealer, and all that stuff. He has friends, and he's not the complete antisocial isolated asshole that his brother seems to be. Which makes it even harder to watch, because it's so easy to see how his brother could be a terrorist. Yes, that is exactly what our image of an extremist looks like. But then you look at the younger brother, and you think how can someone seem so normal, (slightly) relatable, and (almost) sympathetic, and yet so casually talk about better ways to kill people?
Also, being mindful of spoilers, I just want to talk about how well they did some of the manhunt scenes. There are two scenes that still stick in my mind right now.
One is a super tense scene inside a car, and it was done so well. I was on the edge of my seat, shifting uncomfortably, and shaking my legs in agitation; it was so intense and the actor did a great job.
Then there was a car shootout scene and man that was insane. That was the scene I was talking about earlier where I thought it seemed so unrealistic, but was actually pretty accurate.
So in the end, I really liked this film. I would say Deepwater Horizon has more rewatchability value, because of the sheer scale of things, but this would still be a decent rewatch, and I think because it just tells this incredible story based on real events about how everyone came together to catch these two terrorists, and it sends a great message about the need for us to unite, instead of divide. I'd recommend watching it in cinemas just for some of the crazier scenes, but I guess it can also be quite a casual watch at home.
I wonder what the next Peter-Berg-real-life-movie-starring-Mark-Wahlberg will be?
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