Review of Patriots Day (2016) by Justus G — 24 Jan 2017

Adapting a tragic event into film is always a tricky exercise, especially when the event happens to be politically charged. (which the Boston Marathon bombing most certainly is). Questions like when is too soon, subjective depictions of hero's and villains, and the problem of tasteful/respectful representations tend to linger.

In my opinion, as long as a film approaches the subject matter with a degree of fairness and grace, any foray into a tragic event, no matter how closely (or far) we are removed from the experience itself, can offer a good opportunity to breathe life, perspective and relevance into these places where we might otherwise not be able to see it. Films like Patriot's Day can help us understand a difficult event, and even shed light on the ways we understand these events (rightly or wrongly), and push us towards a degree of helpful self examination and solidarity with those who lived through it.

So the question for me is, does Patriot's day provide us with these opportunities? I would say it does, in both expected and unexpected ways. And above that, it is simply a really well done film.

Patriot's Day makes the interesting choice to fuse actual surveillance and camera footage of the event with the dramatic retelling itself. This fusion gives the film a really interesting visual dynamic, playing with our sense of where the real footage begins and where the interpretive process ends. It also gives the film a raw, and unfiltered feel to the ground level chase sequences that boost its sense of realism and ratchet up the tension- and this film is intense to be sure.

And this is likely what made Patriot's Day work so well in my eyes- It takes an event that is 3 years removed and plays with my memory of the event in such a way that I found myself shocked at how little I actually knew about the real life story that I had observed back in April, 2013 (from afar), primarily through the news coverage of the 80 plus hours it took for the event to unfold. There were, of course, select things that I was aware of- that there were two bombers, the fact that a cop was killed in cold blood, the kidnapping and car-jacking, the shutting down of the city. But what the film does so extremely well is recreate the process from the eyes of the agents and police themselves, and it really is an eye opening process as we are given an inside look at exactly how they tracked down the bombers (absolutely fascinating and intense to watch unfold on screen), the danger they faced along the way, and the sheer absurdity of the bombers themselves. Seriously, these were two individuals with an incredible lack of smarts and skill when it came to how they pulled everything off, and yet this is precisely what made the whole event so destructive.

The film manages to take an event that I thought I knew something about, and one in which I know the ending, and kind of pulls the curtain on just how intense these 80 plus hours really were. You will understand this if you see the film, but I had no idea how many bombs these two individuals actually had in their possession. The fact that the police were so close to catching them at so many different points, and yet still were unable to apprehend them, had me on the edge of my seat for the whole time.

The film is much more about the collective experience of its characters rather than the individual performances, and there really isn't any one performance that takes center stage (I could give a nod to Simmon's wonderfully serious but comedic take on the Watertown police sgt.), but there has been some criticism lobbied at the fact that Whalberg's character (Tommy) happens to me an amalgamation of two different people, shedding question on the films decision to use Tommy as a piece of affective symbolism for the films larger message and heart (of what true patriotism does and should mean in events like this). But films like Patriots Day (that deal with real life tragic events) do this kind of thing all the time, and I actually felt like Tommy's character was an important piece of the puzzle for connecting us to all of the different floating pieces that the film sets in play in its rather emotionally charged opening sequence. It allows what can feel like over dramatization to hit you over the head when you finally realize this is what actually happened.

The other reason that Tommy's character is important for the film is that he represents the introspective process/opportunity that the film affords us as viewers. In many ways he is the character that seems to reflect the filmmakers own interpretive point of view, as Tommy is the one who kind of gets to stand back and make sense of what is happening around him in light of his own life and struggles as well. In the context of the film, he acts as the bridge that moves us from the visual retelling to the emotional connection, preparing us for a powerfully rendered ending sequence.

And this is the true power of the film, the way that it takes a local event (Boston Strong) and pushes us out into a larger view of humanities current struggle with acts of terrorism. There are some key scenes in the film where the real questions rise to the surface. What can we do about it? How do we respond? Will things ever change? Is there ever really a victory to be had in these kinds of situations? Are there really hero's and villains to be had in situations like this? For Tommy, really all we can do is choose to pick ourselves up and live differently than the mess that we see around us. All we can really do is choose to love in a world where hate and suffering continues to exist, and not just in Boston but around the world.

There are moments in Patriots Day where these heartfelt questions meet with some of the larger angst of the political system itself. The film certainly could have made choices to go further down some of these roads, certainly when it comes to how much we depend on our police and the military, and how the sacrifice of these men and women connect to the larger political systems that govern them both in a national sense and a global sense. But it chooses instead to narrow us in on the men and women themselves who can teach us something about living through this experience. Patriots Day, as a film, is not about questions of nationalism, but rather about the connecting points between personhood and community, and this is something that I think all of us can relate to, regardless of our approach to the problem of terrorism.

The films ending adds an emotional punch that I was not expecting, although to be honest I don't fully know what I was expecting from this film. It is so much better than I thought, and immensely more impactful and meaningful. I should add a cautionary note to this- the film is not simply raw in its visual depiction, it also presents a raw and unfiltered look at the characters. There is a lot of strong language, which for those who feel they need to be aware or sensitive of that, the opening sequence will certainly give you a good indication of this fact- but the film is certainly a good, honest representation of how to tackle an event like this with respect and introspection. Wholly affecting, wonderfully intense, and revealing.