Movie #1529 "Patriots Day" --- it took me a while to sit down and watch this, because I thought it might be too emotional for me in parts, and I was right, but overall the film could have done better! There are, I felt, three possibilities on approaches this film could have used on this subject matter: focus mostly on the heroic people who lost limbs & with Boston Strong attitude are now continuing to soldier on in their lives (along with the first responders); a second possibility was the working together of the FBI and the Boston police department & most importantly, the help from the community on social media to find the terrorists; and the third is to focus mostly on the terrorists, and the reasons why, what led them to the deed, etc. Three huge stories ---- I wasn't sure how a director could whittle the story down to something easily watchable. This film'a director I have mixed feelings about (some of Peter Berg's work I have liked, and others not so much), & ironically I found the same problem here. He seems very capable technically with showing major points of a rather big story, but is weak in editing the story so an audience won't lose interest in it along the way --- the transitions, the dialogue, the editing , all a bit weak here. As a result, he tries to cover all three stories above, and does it rather shallowly. The longest scene, and the one you can tell he had the passion for, was part of the story I didn't really know much about and that was the shootout in Waterville, where the younger brother actually runs over his older brother, who is hurt already and lying in the street when the two guys were caught in the street hours after the bombing. That was hard to watch and follow and it was too long for me to watch --- The scene where the FBI with the help of the Boston police (esp. Mark Wahlberg) research through watching videotape to figure out how the terrorists got to the moment of the bombing, could have been even longer, because to me, it is the meat of the story! And I was so disappointed that all of a sudden the police get a call and this guy says he thinks the younger brother is in his boat in his backyard. The nightly news made that much more of an exciting story than the film does. Another complaint I had was that the way the film is put together, we really don't get much of a sense of the victims, the ones lying in the hospital while the search goes on for the terrorists -- maybe he could have gone to the hospital once in a while, using juxtaposition, a technique Mr. Berg could use more to further his stories. I give this 3.5 ----I think there are some wonderful moments, and that shoot out in the streets is a fine scene, but the rest is a shallow coverage of a huge tragedy in our history. Maybe a several part series might have been more effective? Just a thought. Because after watching this, I wanted so much more information on Patriots Day!
"PATRIOTS DAY" 2016 2 hours and 13 mins. rated R
A tragic bombing near the finish line at the 2013 Boston Marathon sets off a citywide manhunt for the perpetrators. With residents devastated by the events, Sgt. Tommy Saunders and the Boston Police Department zero in on two suspects.
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