Patriots Day Review

    On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs detonated at 2:49 PM near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring several hundred others, including 16 who lost limbs. Patriots Day is the powerful story of the community of Boston's strength and courage in the face of this terrible act and the suspense of one of the most sophisticated manhunts in law enforcement history.

    Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg team up for their second movie, based on a true story, in 3 months about events that have happened within the past 10 years. The film follows Wahlberg's character, created for the film, who joins with the real life characters at the race during the bombing and after with the police and FBI in the manhunt of the two bombers. The performances throughout this film by Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon as Special Agent DesLauriers, John Goodman as Police Commissioner Davis, and J.K. Simmons as Sergeant Pugliese of Watertown. Berg does an excellent job of not seeming to exploit the events to make money but instead shows the people's story and honors all of the Bostonians that responded with strength through the fear of terrorism.

    The two actors playing the bombers, Themo Melikidze and Alex Wolff, do an excellent job as well carrying their part of the story and truly show what is believed to have been going on between the two brothers. The showing of the survivors' stories are weaved in throughout the movie making sure to pay respect to each including a young couple both maimed in the attacks, Meng who was carjacked by the bombers and managed to escape, and the MIT officer who would not give up his gun to the brothers and died to keep it from happening. There are plenty of parts throughout the movie that I would say are applause-seeking which serve as moments of release from the intensity throughout the film. The film drags quite a bit through the final act but finishes perfectly and is a beautiful and important film that definitely needs to be seen.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film and can't see any reason to score it any less than a 9/10. Please go out and see this movie as soon as you can.