Patriots' Day

This review may contain spoilers!

On one hand this film manages to capture the horror of the Boston Marathon bombings in a poignant way, but on the other hand this is a film that really incites a harmful and naive view of an entire religion and culture. I would give Patriots' Day a 6/10.

The moment the bomb goes off in this film is the real pivotal factor, suddenly complete chaos is brought before us onscreen and the raw grief and horror is very well presented. The film also does a great shoot out to conclude the second act, we see a really bloody and explosive engagement between the police and the terrorists behind the bombings. The choice to conclude the film upon interviews of those who were integral to the film's narrative was a very moving touch and brought out some very real emotion that the film hadn't quite managed to impart in the same way.

Mark Wahlberg, who played Tommy Saunders, makes for a fairly good protagonist in this film especially when he's demanding the system act in a just way; I found Wahlberg did his best when he was unleashing his grief over what he had just witnessed and when he was expressing his views that love will always trump hate. John Goodman, who played Commissioner Ed Davis, is a very steady and stern bureaucratic figure throughout the feature; I think Goodman's best scene was when he really violently demanded that the FBI release the photos they were sitting on. James Colby, who played Superintendent Billy Evans, was a tough figure who locked horns with Wahlberg from time to time; I liked that Colby presented a character who could joke in the face of tough situations but also grow stern in the face of duty.

However the best performance came from J.K. Simmons, who played Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese. Simmons was a pretty witty character, he good-naturedly traded some fun lines with his co-stars. I liked how kind hearted this role was, here was a character who actually seemed to have a good and grounded relationship with his onscreen wife. When the film drew near to the end of the second act and we see Simmons charge into action you see the courage behind this character as well, this was a heavily charged moment where younger officers had sustained serious injuries and this older officer was right in there amongst it.

There were so many storylines or perspectives going on in this film that it was hard to keep track of them all, it also meant you struggled to form much of a bond with any of the roles and defused a lot of the tension. There was also a lot of points in this film where we dealt with meaningless time filler, people chatting or a random scene that wasn't explicitly serving the narrative and just made the whole thing feel dull. Furthermore a really big issue of this film was that it never knew how to talk about the Muslim faith versus radical Islam, it's a big issue with American cinema and is very prevalent throughout this feature. The film beats around the bush about how to treat Muslim characters (which these characters aren't) and then proceeds to seriously villainise the Muslim faith for the rest of the feature; culminating in a horrible couple of scenes where an FBI agent refuses to let doctors work on one of the terrorists and in which a 'Muslim' woman is interrogated without her rights and in a completely illegal context. Films like this tend to preach the purity of American justice, but it's an injustice every time a film is delivered that fails to study the facts it's presenting or the other perspective. The cinematography used is very jarring and hard to focus upon, the ugly use of shaky-cam in scenes that just don't need it is unwarranted. I also thought the editing harmed the pacing, the use of security cam footage and actual footage from the evnt looked awful in contrast with the movie. The score for this film is pretty much non-existent, edgy sound effects and bass are good and all but it would have been nice to see a little effort put towards giving this film a sound.

Christopher O'Shea and Rachel Brosnahan, who played Patrick Downes and Jessica Kensky respectively, may have been a touching story in real life but were corny as hell in this film; I think the serious lack of chemistry and weak dialogue failed this storyline. Jake Picking and Lana Condor, who played Officer Sean Collier and Li respectively, were once again another romance subplot you didn't really care much for due to their lack of chemistry and screen time; Picking was just such a bland and cardboard cut-out type performer that it really had little impact when his character was killed off. Michelle Monaghan, who played Carol Saunders, was really just there for Wahlberg to bounce lines off of; it was clear from the start that the two of them had absolutely no chemistry as a romantic couple. Jimmy O. Yang and Cara O'Connell, who played Dun Meng and Kara respectively, showcased to me that really this film thought if they slotted as much of the cast in boring romantic relationships as possible we'd care more if they were in danger (big shock when that didn't work); Yang's performance is all over the place in this film and means the personality of his role never really seems concrete. Melissa Benoist, who played Katherine Russell, seemed entirely out of place in this role; Benoist did not fit her character one bit and it showed in that alarmingly bad interrogation scene. Alex Wolff and Themo Melikidze, who played Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev respectively, were quite weak as the film's antagonists; they both seemed to be trying really hard to portray these over the top caricatures of terrorists. Michael Beach, who played Governor Deval Patrick, was such a bland background role in this film; I struggled to see what the point of having Beach involved in the main discussion of characters was. Dustin Tucker, who played Steve Woolfenden, was that generic subplot you knew the entire direction of as soon as it began; Tucker did a good job at portraying a stereotype which doesn't credit him much. Kevin Bacon, who played Special Agent Richard DesLauriers, just didn't seem to be putting any effort into this film; Bacon never rose to the action or emotional tone around him and there were moments where I had to wonder if he had a pulse cause his presence just wasn't there. Khandi Alexander, who played the Interrogator, basically embodied all I ahted about this film; Alexander isn't to blame but the horrid presentation of her character in this script is a black mark against American cinema.