Patriots Day - Heartfelt, Emotional, Uplifting And Brilliant. One Of The Best Films Of 2017

Certificate – 15

Directed by – Peter Berg

Starring – Mark Wahlberg; Kevin Bacon; John Goodman; J.K. Simmons; Michelle Monaghan; Alex Wolff; Themo Melikidze; Melissa Benoist

Running Time – 130 Minutes (2 hours 10 minutes)

 ★★★★★

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America isn’t great at subtlety when it comes to telling the world how great they are. For example, I hated American Sniper mainly because it was very USA, USA, USA and that was my worry seeing a film called Patriots Day. Luckily, it reaffirmed the faith and human spirit that could be missing nowadays.

Patriots Day tells the true life story about the US investigators and first responders race to find the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Berg has directed one of the best films of 2017. Patriots Day is superb direction and storytelling with incredible performances especially Wahlberg who gave the best performance I’ve ever seen him give, it was raw and powerful.

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Berg also got brilliant performances from Goodman, Bacon, Simmons (who makes me super excited to see him as Jim Gordon in Justice League) and Benoist. Speaking of Benoist, HOLY CRAP she was unrecognisable, it took me a few times to figure it out it was Supergirl. She was so chilling and different it shows how talented she is and she’s going to be a big star.

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I love the real-time storytelling and seeing how people of Boston were living their lives the hours before and after the bomb including things that I didn’t even know happened. It was so effective I was highly emotional throughout the film and cried multiple times.

Meanwhile, I loved getting to know these people who were affected by the events because when the bombings happened, nearly four years ago, because these people felt more real as I and probably a lot didn’t know 80% of the info shown in the film, a lot of it was brand new info to me.

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What Berg really did superbly was showing how amazing the human spirit battles against fear mainly using humour and there are some funny moments sprinkled throughout #BostonStrong.

Finally, please stay until the credits because you’ll leave the cinema uplifted.

Verdict

Led by Wahlberg’s superb performance, Patriots Day is heartfelt, emotional and uplifting and brilliantly directed by Berg.

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