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Mark wahlberg moment of truth1/1/2024 In particular, the immediate chaos during the marathon bombings, and the astonishing street battle between police and the two brothers who carried out the heinous attacks are depicted with such realism and immense impact upon the viewer that it is easy to forget you're not watching documentary footage captured during the real events. Berg captures a perfect sense of place and time, and of how those two combine to fundamentally influence everything that happened and everyone involved.Įven knowing what happened, being aware of the news reports and basic details, will not prepare you for the film's hyper-realistic, largely entirely fact-based and accurate portrayal of the terrorist attacks, the aftermath, the manhunt, the confrontation between law enforcement and the terrorists, and the way the city of Boston came together during and after the adversity. This is a rare case where the claim "the city is a character in the film" is particularly true, something only a few films - such as Taxi Driver, Manhattan, Blade Runner, or Chinatown for example - have really managed to full and wonderful effect. And among that praise for the cast I'd have to include Boston itself as a personality that resonates throughout the whole production. The cast all deserve high praise, for their individual performances and how well they function as an ensemble (a point I can't stress enough). There are moments of breathless anxiety and sadness, or severe and brutally violent action, of heart-achingly awe-inspiring heroism and selflessness, and never does it cross the line into a feeling of exploitation, glamorization, or artifice. I have rarely felt as completely immersed in the emotion and experience and truth of a story as I was with this film. We are no longer passive observers, we are swept into it as if witnessing the events playing out before us on the streets. Patriots Day puts raw humanity on the screen, it envelops us in the world of these people and the events that transpired to such an extent it becomes real to us. That difficulty is in direct proportion to how dramatic and human are the events being depicted. Honest and sincere, faithful representation is even more important and subsequently more difficult when the film is attempting to portray a true story, because there's so much danger of resorting to melodrama or being so restrained as to wind up dispassionate. The sheer humanity, the compelling intellectual and emotional complexity of individuals and of groups living and feeling and facing tragedy, is all often difficult to capture on screen with real integrity and authenticity. Patriots Day lets us see people shaking with fear even as they run toward danger, people weeping at the knowledge they may be about to die yet holding on anyway and struggling to do what needs to be done, people who stand up and keep fighting because it's hard but right. What there is, is a determination to show real people, flawed people, people who remind us that courage is not absence of fear - it is will to action despite fear, in the very face of fear. There are no narrowly defined characterizations, there is no simplicity to the narrative or themes or morality. There are no superheroes in Patriots Day. There is a fundamental truthfulness permeating the picture. If it wins a few Oscar nominations -it could receive nods for film editing, sound editing, and/or sound mixing, as well as possibly for adapted screenplay - that will certainly help its final cume, too. Oscar buzz and a wave of positive word of mouth should work in its favor, and the $45 million budget means it won't take long for the picture to become a success. The Berg-Wahlberg pairing saw Lone Survivor and Deepwater Horizon each topping $100+ million, and I'd expect Patriots Day to easily outpace them by a significant margin. I expect Patriots Day to take the top spot for the weekend, unless church audiences and a boost from MLK Day carry Hidden Figures to a strong enough hold to retain the #1 position just ahead of Patriots Day. It's going up against the wide releases of Live By Night and Silence, the sophomore return of last weekend's newcomer Hidden Figures, and of course the continued power of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the animated Sing. With strong positive reviews and a gripping true story featuring a terrific ensemble cast and some of the finest dramatic storytelling and action sequences in years, Patriots Day should top $20 million at the domestic box office when it enters wide release this weekend.
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