Review of Patriots Day (2016) by Glenn G — 26 Dec 2016

WICKED PISSA - My Review of PATRIOTS DAY (3 Stars).

I love Boston. It's a beautiful city, but its people are often as difficult to navigate as its streets. They appear salt of the earth, but sometimes it feels like a closed society with its own distinct lingo and customs. It can be intimidating from an outsider's perspective. Hell, I feel out of place in L.A. whenever I go to a chi-chi party ridiculously underdressed or go to the gym with bedhead, so maybe I'm the one with the problem. I mean, I was always the last picked in school sports and never felt part of a clique, so yeah, life for me is often an experience of looking in from the other side of a window. I'm not complaining, because it's what makes me a better writer, but one day I'd love to know what it's like to be at the center of a tribe. Just for a day. It doesn't help that the results of this year's presidential elections made me feel like I live in a country filled with alternate universe strangers.

All of this is to say that while watching PATRIOTS DAY, writer/director Peter Berg's exciting, visceral accounting of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, it made me feel like an outsider all over again. Sure, it's important to recount the heroism and unity those "Boston Strong" brought to the table on such a tragic day, but Peter Berg's brand of rah-rah, "America F*ck Yeah" macho sometimes makes me feel like I'm being bullied. Luckily, he's an incredibly talented filmmaker who knows how to bring winning details to the broadest of scenarios. So while I wanted to keep myself at arm's length from this particular group of Bostonians, I couldn't help but admire their spirit.

The film, co-written by Mat Cook and Joshua Zetumer, begins a few hours before the terrorist attack, introducing characters and filling us up with the town's vernacular. Mark Wahlberg plays Tommy Saunders, a fictional composite and police officer having to work the finish line of the race as the last punishment of his suspension. One more day, people, and he'll be in the clear. Wrong day! Wrong day! His character, in fact, is the one bit of hooey in this credible docudrama. While he seems to be everywhere at the right time and is saddled with the most on-the-nose 11th hour speech of this movie-going year, the rest of the cast slide into their roles with perfect ease. They include Kevin Bacon as a tightly wound FBI agent, John Goodman as the Boston Police Commissioner, J.K. Simmons as a Police Sergeant, and Michael Beach as Governor Deval Patrick. Jimmy O. Yang (SILICON VALLEY) shines as a guy who has an unfortunate meeting with the terrorists and easily wins the audience's affections. He has a chilling scene with the terrorists in which they discuss 9/11 as a hoax that I won't soon forget. Jake Picking, so frightening in GOAT, is quite winning and sympathetic as a young Police Officer who can't wait to take a girl to a Zac Brown concert. Women, however, don't register as vividly in Peter Berg films, with the criminally underused Michelle Monaghan relegated to being the dutiful wife often on the other end of a phone call.

Despite this, one performance shines above all others, and strangely enough belongs to a woman. Khandi Alexander plays a sly interrogator in her one scene as she faces off against the wife of one of the bombers. Her command made me sit up straight as she stared down her opponent and eerily repeated, "Are there any other bombs?" She proves, as did Laura Linney with her one scene in NOCTURNAL ANIMALS, that the Oscars should sometimes be called The Beatrice Straight Award. GOOGLE it. You're welcome!

PATRIOTS DAY is a pummeling experience filled with chases and explosions, perhaps more than what happened in real life. It's never dull, but for me, the little details made most of it seem highly credible. I loved having characters worry about the lack of working bathrooms in the command center, or J.K. Simmons marveling at the sight of a car "blinkah" making the windows go down. Wahlberg has a terrific scene in which he's asked to recall where all the security cameras are along the marathon route. You get the sense that Bostonians truly know every square inch of their city, which blankets the film in a sense of security. Perhaps this is the film we need right now. After 9/11, I was inspired by how this country came together, and the same thing happened in Boston. Perhaps because the majority of Americans are worried that our country is on the brink of disaster with A Trump White House, PATRIOTS DAY may serve as a reminder that we can pull through the toughest of times. OR....this film may feel like a Nationalist Call To Arms. I felt both, which leaves me conflicted about the whole experience.

I'll admit I shed a tear or too at the end, when Berg chooses to strangely present a documentary of the brave survivors. Emotionally it works, but it does take you right out of the movie...literally. It features messages that brought me back to that bullied feeling, to that last picked kid on the playground, who hears guys bragging about how they will beat you up. In PATRIOTS DAY, a Police Officer talks about how Bostonians are nice people until you cross them. Never before have I felt threatened and relieved all at once.