Peter Berg, the director of films such as âFriday Night Lights,â âThe Kingdom,â âLone Survivorâ and âDeepwater Horizon,â knows how to draw the truth out of a story and present it in an entertaining, authentic yet sometimes unpleasant way without pulling you too far in or out without questioning his skill and intentions. Often taking on the challenge of telling true life events, he handles these subjects with great care. He has proven over and over that he doesnât exploit people and that heâs legitimate and capable and now with âPatriots Dayâ, he does so again.Â
Here, he brings us to April of 2013 and the events that occurred at the Boston Marathon. Sensitively, he introduces many of the characters slowly, leaving you to wonder their position in the chronicled narrative when see them pop up next. Some characters are going to participate in the marathon and others come in and out for awhile before you are shown their role. Two stand out right away; the bombers themselves.Â
Seeing them sends you back to the day of the attack and not in a positive way. Anger wells up from somewhere and youâre not exactly sure of what to do with it. Everyone is set up perfectly by Berg, these two especially. Tommy (Wahlberg) is a police officer working the Marathon, a duty that heâs given because he is working off a suspension and is now part of crowd control, something he deeply despises.  After the explosions, he steps up to help Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Bacon) with the investigation. Knowing Boston better than an agent from out of town, he is desperately needed in finding the perpetrators. Iâm sure anyone of the Boston police offers present could do this job but we have to make Wahlberg the hero somehow so this works. After a command center is set up, video surveillance finds the man who leaves one of the bombs to explode where he set it and they use footage from all the stores in the area to trace is steps. This is how they discover he didnât act alone.