'PATRIOTS DAY' is another real life dramatic thriller Co-Written for the screen and Directed by Peter Berg who also brought us last years 'Deepwater Horizon' and 'Lone Survivor' in 2013 which both also starred, like this offering, his go to actor for playing the uniformed ordinary everyman caught up in extraordinary circumstances - Mark Wahlberg. Based on the book 'Boston Strong' by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge this tells the story of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. Costing US$45M to make the film has so far recovered US$38M since its US release at Christmas time. The film has garnered generally positive Reviews from critics and film goers alike.
The film opens up with Boston Police Department Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg) busting down a door with his leg to get to a drug dealer inside a seedy downtown apartment. The bust goes according to plan, except that Saunders has hyper-extended his leg and now walks with a limp and a knee brace for the rest of the film. Immediately following the bust his superior officer, Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman) arrives and orders that Saunders reports for Marathon Supervision duties the next day wearing his Police Uniform. He tries to argue back but is quickly brought down a peg by Davis reminding him of some earlier misdemeanour for which he is serving out time on dead beat duties, and tomorrow is his last day of servitude and then he has a clean slate again thereafter. He arrives back home in the early hours of the morning having had a few beers with the boys, wakes his wife Carol (Michelle Monaghan) who dismisses him, and settles onto the sofa with another beer - he has to be up for Marathon duty in less than five hours. The next day, April 15th 2013, with his Police Uniform neatly pressed and high viz jacket on, the pair kiss and bid their farewells.
The next day cuts to an apartment where radical Islam brothers Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff) are making final preparations for a bomb attack on the Boston Marathon. Using home made devises loaded with all manner of harm inflicting shrapnel, they load the improvised explosive devices into two back-packs and make off for their destination. We trace their journey to the proximity of the finish line, negotiating their way through the crowds of onlookers and revellers out enjoying the Patriots Day public holiday. They weave in and out of spectators young and old, security personnel, Police, and other officials and then lay their back packs at their feet, turn around and depart from whence they came. No one suspects a thing. Pacing up and down the street meanwhile is Tommy Saunders taking it all in and sharing a joke with his on-duty fellow Police Officers. Then boom, as an explosion rips through the crowd just a block away quickly followed by another with smoke billowing out from the side of the street close to the finish line.
With widespread panic all around, Saunders and his fellow Officers are close at hand to issue orders, call in all necessary emergency support and provide assistance to the injured. It's a scene of carnage as the low positioned bombs radiated out their deadly shrapnel on most victims from the waist down. There are badly lacerated legs, ankles and feet, and severed lower limbs lying on the blood soaked pavement - it's a picture of death and destruction. We follow ambulance crews and paramedics attending to the injured and needy and then move to several hospitals where emergency surgery is being performed to amputate legs - on young husband and wife Patrick Downes (Christopher O'Shea) and Jessica Kensky (Rachel Brosnahan) separated after the blast and taken unconscious to separate hospitals.
Quickly afterwards various law enforcement authorities began to gather at the scene while the emergency services go about their business. With Saunders giving orders to his fellow Police Officers on the ground, so arrives Commissioner Ed Davis, with FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon) who survey the fall out and determine if this was a terrorist attack. Upon initial inspection DesLauriers is uncertain, but his mind is soon made up when he picks up a cluster of small blood soaked ball bearings. At this point DesLauriers assumes command and is in charge of operations. For now though he places a widespread embargo on any communication with the press or the media about a possible terrorist attack pending investigations and to avoid the news frenzy associated with acts of terror, especially on American soil.
Within no time a Command Centre is established in an abandoned warehouse where all manner of technological hardware, state of the art software, a reconstruction of the street scape and blast zone, and a whole army of analysts, surveillance experts and officials are mobilised to track down whoever did this. They begin by tapping into every camera lining the streets and those inside shops, cafes, bars and restaurants; using all the abandoned mobile phones from the scene and scanning text messages, photos and videos; and talking to witnesses at the scene, including those hospitalised. Saunders goes home to his wife, emotionally distraught at the sights he has witnessed over the preceding fourteen hours or so. In no time however, he receives a call to come into the Command Centre. There Saunders knowledge of the city and camera locations is put to the test as a person of interest is identified from the footage of the blast zone immediately before the explosions. Tracking the suspects possible whereabouts they trace back his journey in an attempt to get a clear photograph of the individual and any accomplice. It's not long before they do!
Meanwhile, the Tsarnaev brothers attempt to lay low while preparing for their next attack - in New York, but they have to get there first. They load up a car with their makeshift explosive devices in two boxes, and head out late at night. They need another weapon with which to protect themselves and so happen upon young Police Officer Sean Collier (Jake Picking) who is on night watch at a University Campus. They ambush him at gun point in his parked patrol car and shoot him twice in the face and attempt to steal his Police issue weapon, but Collier fights back from his drivers seat but is eventually overpowered with several more rounds shot into him at point blank range.
-Steve, at Odeon Online-
