I feared it was too soon but Patriots Day is tactfully and sensitively told and worth celebrating
It’s interspersed with real footage and you feel like you're there
PART of me thought that Patriots Day had come a bit too soon.
Then, once this account of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing started, I realised how little I actually remembered about it.
Sure, I knew it took place on the finish line and that one of the bombers was found in a boat a few days later — but the heart of this story lies in the detail.
The bomb being casually put down beside a pushchair, the body of an eight-year-old boy lying alone while forensics went about their job and the insane story of the carjacked guy who pretty much turned the investigation around.
I’d even forgotten the nation was already in mourning over the Sandy Hook primary school massacre just four months earlier.
It’s a tale packed full of heroes and bravery, mostly told through the eyes of police sergeant Tommy Saunders (a solid and dependable Mark Wahlberg).
He features alongside an absolutely cracking ensemble cast including John Goodman, Kevin Bacon, Michelle Monaghan and J.K. Simmons — who bounce off each other wonderfully.
In the opening 20 minutes we are introduced to all the athletes, wellwishers and notable characters we’ll sadly be seeing more of later in the film — interestingly, alongside the two bombers.
The decision to humanise them is an important one for the film.
Seeing them nonchalantly buying milk an hour after killing
three people and injuring hundreds is, in ways, a lot more chilling than if they had been portrayed in the usual manner.
They are pretty crap — arguing over their press coverage, watching video clips on how to build a bomb etc.
It’s chilling in its normality.
Watching the bombs explode is horrible.
It’s interspersed with real footage and I felt like I was among them, seeing ball bearings covered in blood and guts lying on the floor.
The chaos leaves you stunned and silent.
Post-explosion, this is a gripping manhunt story.
The authorities’ quarrelling is less annoying than usual and highlights the dilemma of when to contain and release information.
It also shows just how much of the job sometimes boils down to luck.
The chase and arrest of the bombers is nuts — I had zero idea there was so much of a stand-off. Did they really stand there chucking bombs at police cars?
Director Peter Berg does a great job of staying the right side of sensationalising this story, choosing to focus on the real heroes.
By the time we got to see the real people behind the story, post-credits, I felt like saluting them myself.
A great story told sensitively and tactfully.