Movie Review: 'Patriots Day'

'Patriots Day,' a new movie starring Mark Wahlberg, looks at the events surrounding the Boston Marathon bombing and the manhunt to find the terrorists responsible for the attacks. Spectrum News film critic Neil Rosen filed the following review.

The new docudrama is an account of the terrorist attacks that took place on April 15, 2013 that killed three people and injured more than 200 others.

Director Peter Berg effectively recreates the horrors of that day, as well as the citywide manhunt for the two brothers responsible for the carnage.

All the members of the Boston Police Department who are depicted in the film are based on real people. Actors John Goodman and J.K. Simmons play some of those police officers.

But Mark Whalberg's character, a Boston cop who was at the finish line when the bombing happened and is quite involved in the search for the suspects, is fictitious.

If you are doing a docudrama about something this serious and unsettling, there is no point of making up a composite character.

That said director Berg lends insight into how they found the two terrorists with video camera surveillance and other technologies. Plus, the story of the fanatical brothers themselves is quite good, as are the two actors who play them, Themo Melikidze and Alex Wolff.

The film explores several gripping stories, one involving a foreign student who is kidnapped by the brothers soon after the bombing, and a heartbreaking one about a newlywed couple who lost their limbs on that horrific day. 

The bombing and shootout scenes are graphic and realistic, even though some might find the experience of watching this to be, understandably, harrowing and disturbing.

Ultimately, "Patriots Day" looks at how the city and its law enforcement officials came together in the face of this horrible tragedy.