DIRECTOR Peter Berg
CAST Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, J.K.
Simmons, Kevin Bacon, Michelle Monaghan,
Jimmy O. Yang, Alex Wolff, Themo Melikidze
PLOT April 15, 2013: two radicalised brothers plant
home-made bombs at the finish line of the
Boston Marathon, which kill three and injure
hundreds. The Boston PD and FBI launch a
massive manhunt for the killers, while the
brothers attempt to flee the city; all of Boston
is caught up in the escalating chaos.
OUT NOW
RATED M / 133 MINS
★★★★★
PATRIOTS DAY
AFTER LONE SURVIVOR and
Deepwater Horizon, Peter Berg has completed a
trilogy of recent-history odes to salt-of-the-Earth
Americans starring Mark Wahlberg. (Although
Wahlberg is pencilled into Berg’s next movie as
well, so the run may continue.) Focussing on the
2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which claimed
three lives and injured hundreds, Berg has hit a
high point – an engrossing, and often harrowing,
thrill ride. If you’re hoping for an exploration of
what could drive two brothers to such vile deeds,
look elsewhere: Berg doesn’t excessively demonise
the Tsarnaev brothers, but this is presented from
Team Blue’s POV. What you get is a textbook
case on how to build tension when you already
know most of what’s coming.
The lead-up to the bombing itself is deftly
handled. Knowing it’s about to happen,
watching the people standing next to the bags, is
torturous — a rising storm of tension fed bythe score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
(The Social Network, Gone Girl). The movie
is rated M, for moderate impact violence, but
the bombing and its immediate aftermath is
gruesomely affecting; those with weak stomachs
might avoid eating steak tartare beforehand.
But Berg has judged just how much gore to
show, and just how long to show it, to
maximise the impact without actually
wallowing in suffering.
The screenplay is based on the meticulously
researched non-iction account of the Boston
Marathon bombings Boston Strong, by Casey
Sherman and Dave Wedge, and is shot in a
slightly shaky cinema verite style (a Berg
favourite), so it’s tempting to regard it as a
quasi-documentary. But for all the detail Berg
has crammed into the ilm, it has also been
moulded to conform very neatly to Berg’s
cinematic worldview, centred around working-