Review of Patriots Day (2016) by Robert J — 18 Feb 2017

Stirring, effective 'historical' drama that plays out like a police procedural with extremely high stakes, Patriots Day is a very good film - easily eclipsing Deepwater Horizon in my mind. It's fairly straightforward, with only the occasional (and annoying) screenwriting flourish - I swear, that PB&J couple should have been left out - but it has an interesting structure that lends itself well to a cinematic experience.

For me, the high points were the times we followed Dzokhar and his brother executing the attacks, and what they do after. For this reason, it really feels like a disservice to the audience that we got so little backstory on WHY this seemingly normal kid (Jahar) and his sister in law were so easily radicalized.

I refuse to accept that it's "cuz they Muslim, stoopid". Fortunately I felt they were humanized decently, so we can infer some of that ourselves.