‘Patriots Day’ film review
By Jerrison Oracion, Senior Columnist
5/5
The Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 was one of the worst terrorist attacks in United States history since 9/11. An event that many people in Boston thought impossible took place. It not only affected a lot of people, it caused the city to come together during a very difficult time. Patriots Day is the first of two films that talks about the Boston Marathon bombing. The film shows a detailed explanation of the events of the bombing before, during, and after.
Patriots Day follows various people involved in the event, from first responders, including Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg), Jeffrey Pugliese (J.K. Simmons), and FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon), to some of the victims including Patrick Downes (Christopher O’Shea), Jessica Kensky (Rachel Brosnahan) and Sean Collier (Jake Picking). The second half of the film focuses on the manhunt for the two brothers that planned the bombing, Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff), with the entire city and an international student community trying to find them. With the help of an international student named Dun Meng (Jimmy O. Yang) who is held hostage by the brothers and escapes from them, the police are able to get Dzhokhar.
Throughout the film, we see on screen graphics allowing the audience to know who is who in the bombing. We also see graphics that show how many hours have passed since the blast happened. The film has handheld camerawork which makes it look like Friday Night Lights. Patriots Day combines the actors with actual footage and pictures from the events to seamlessly connect what really happened during the bombing. It is interesting that the actors cast as Dzhokhar, Tamerlan, and Dun look almost exactly like the people that they played.
Some of the people in the film were overwhelmed by the eight-year-old boy that passed away during the bombing, Martin Richard. One of the things that I learned from the film is that Tamerlan passed away because Dzhokhar accidently ran over him. Overall, three people passed away in the bombing, and the entire city worked together to recover from the tragedy.
Boston is a unique city because it has a long history of major events. In the movie there is a bar scene in which Sean offers an international student (initially thought to be the student who passed away during the bombing) the chance to see a Zac Brown Band concert. This is an example of a community coming together during a major event, like when New York came together during 9/11 or when Vancouver came together after the Stanley Cup riots to clean the city and identify the rioters.
There is another film about the Boston Marathon bombing that focuses on the victims: Stronger, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tatiana Maslany, which opens soon.
