MOVIE REVIEW: Patriot’s Day

I went to see Patriot’s Day  at the movies this week. I was anxious about seeing it, because I had some personal connections to those events and locations surrounding the Boston Marathon tragedy in 2013, so I didn’t know how I would react emotionally. It’s actually because of this that I felt I needed to see it.

Overall, I am glad I went, even though I didn’t like it very much.

Or at all.

This movie was much gorier than it had to be to deliver the same message, in my opinion. It was grisly, gruesome, violent, and bloody (these are most of the synonyms I could find for ‘gory’, because I thought just one ‘gory’ didn’t fully convey my horror).

I’m a nurse, but I’m not that kind of nurse.

When I am watching something that I want to hide from, I am able to put my severe nearsightedness to work to my advantage. I just push those glasses up to my forehead and then the screen is blurry and out of focus enough to allow me to, you know, stay in the theater.

And it wasn’t just during the bombing scene. The soul-crushing bloody guts and death went on and on. And on. In many scenes thereafter.

Early in the movie, I noticed the camera was lingering on the legs and feet of the beautiful couple in the apartment. I realized, oh, these are people who are going to lose their limbs in the bombing. Ugh. Predictable. Terrible.

On the plus side, Mark Wahlburg was amazing in his role as the Boston cop. Hello? Can I just say what a breath of fresh air it is to hear someone speak with a ‘Boston accent’ who really has one and doesn’t murder it?

OMG. See how all that brutality informed my writing just now?
There was also an older man playing a Watertown cop whose acting stole the scene (so sorry that I don’t know his name). And the female Framingham cop on the roof? She nailed it.

About midway through the movie, 4 or 5 youths came into the theater with their hoods pulled up over their heads and one even had on (gasp!) a backpack. I am embarrassed to admit that, at the sight of this, I felt fear. I mean, the bombs in Boston were packed in backpacks. Batman flashed through my mind. I was very glad to hold the hand of my husband sitting to my left, between me, my daughter, and them.

So, I think Patriot’s Day is an important movie but I would say that, if you can, you should be kind to yourself and wait for the cleaned up made-for-TV version.