Patriots Day (15.)
Directed by Peter Berg.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, John Goodman, J.K. Simmons, Michelle Monaghan and Melissa Benoist. 133 mins.
Patriots Day – I don't why there isn't a possessive apostrophe either – offers a forensic procedural mosaic of the five days surrounding the bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013 and the subsequent manhunt. It takes in a broad scope of people – the police, the authorities, the FBI, the victims, the bombers – and shows how their individual experiences fit into the bigger story. It is also about America/ Hollywood's struggle to try and wean themselves off their traditional heroic myths.
At the start the movie whizzes through a cross section of people, and we try to guess how they will figure in the events to unfold. Will they be victims, or heroes, or bystanders? The film is a montage of real events, a rolling news channel of a narrative: we are always being notified of what the time is and nobody appears on screen without written identification appearing beneath them on screen. The film is propaganda piece, a vigorous piece of patriotic mush, pushing the line that acts of terror harden the resolution of the society that is affected by them (true, but works both ways) and that strength comes through working together and all the agencies combining their skills and intelligence. Thematically, it's like a cross between Nashville and a more circumspect 24. There is no longer space for the traditional loner hero.
And yet, let loose in this structure is the disruptive yapping dog that is Mark Wahlberg. He plays officer Tommy Saunders, a bad penny who turns up at all the major events, though to little effect. Bizarrely Saunders is basically the same character Wahlberg played opposite Will Ferrell in the comedy The Other Guys: he is a cop who is coming back from suspension, who is supposed to be on his best behaviour to get his job back, but is constantly bickering with any kind of authority while everybody else is doing all the boring police work: you know, sitting down, checking all the CCTV footage, checking data base and investigating things thoroughly. He charges around like he's in an action hero movie, trying to get the others to join in, but they are all too busy doing their homework. The Tommy character isn't real, but is a composite of four real life officers. Wahlberg is a real Bostonian, so I guess his presence was deemed necessary to represent the spirit of the city, but he's just an idiot.
Wahlberg has an expletive for every occasion and you really notice the swearing in this movie. It's not as foulmouthed as a Scorsese gangster flick but the cursing is very directed in this picture: nobody can speak about the bombers without squeezing in one expletive and each one is there to express the depth of their patriotism and their sense of national identity. Each MF, F, or P of S, is a contracted expression of God Bless America and a salute to the Star Spangled Banner.
Directed by Peter Berg.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, John Goodman, J.K. Simmons, Michelle Monaghan and Melissa Benoist. 133 mins.
Patriots Day – I don't why there isn't a possessive apostrophe either – offers a forensic procedural mosaic of the five days surrounding the bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013 and the subsequent manhunt. It takes in a broad scope of people – the police, the authorities, the FBI, the victims, the bombers – and shows how their individual experiences fit into the bigger story. It is also about America/ Hollywood's struggle to try and wean themselves off their traditional heroic myths.
At the start the movie whizzes through a cross section of people, and we try to guess how they will figure in the events to unfold. Will they be victims, or heroes, or bystanders? The film is a montage of real events, a rolling news channel of a narrative: we are always being notified of what the time is and nobody appears on screen without written identification appearing beneath them on screen. The film is propaganda piece, a vigorous piece of patriotic mush, pushing the line that acts of terror harden the resolution of the society that is affected by them (true, but works both ways) and that strength comes through working together and all the agencies combining their skills and intelligence. Thematically, it's like a cross between Nashville and a more circumspect 24. There is no longer space for the traditional loner hero.
And yet, let loose in this structure is the disruptive yapping dog that is Mark Wahlberg. He plays officer Tommy Saunders, a bad penny who turns up at all the major events, though to little effect. Bizarrely Saunders is basically the same character Wahlberg played opposite Will Ferrell in the comedy The Other Guys: he is a cop who is coming back from suspension, who is supposed to be on his best behaviour to get his job back, but is constantly bickering with any kind of authority while everybody else is doing all the boring police work: you know, sitting down, checking all the CCTV footage, checking data base and investigating things thoroughly. He charges around like he's in an action hero movie, trying to get the others to join in, but they are all too busy doing their homework. The Tommy character isn't real, but is a composite of four real life officers. Wahlberg is a real Bostonian, so I guess his presence was deemed necessary to represent the spirit of the city, but he's just an idiot.
Wahlberg has an expletive for every occasion and you really notice the swearing in this movie. It's not as foulmouthed as a Scorsese gangster flick but the cursing is very directed in this picture: nobody can speak about the bombers without squeezing in one expletive and each one is there to express the depth of their patriotism and their sense of national identity. Each MF, F, or P of S, is a contracted expression of God Bless America and a salute to the Star Spangled Banner.
