Mark Wahlberg lately seems to pick out roles in which real events are dramatized. He played in Lone Survivor, which showed how soldiers had to survive once their mission didn’t go according to plan and in Deepwater Horizon he worked as an engineer on an oil platform which exploded. Both of those movies were directed by Peter Berg and Wahlberg connects with him again here. This film tries to recreate the events surrounding the bombing of the Boston marathon. A terrorist attack which had a tight grip on the city for days and received lots of media attention.
I asked this question before when reviewing Patriot’s Day: Should terrorism be the subject of a movie? In this case recreating something which happened and where various people lost their lives and lost more were wounded. When you also realize that Wahlberg’s character is fictional that results in something you’ll watch with mixed feelings. It was an attack I had heard and seen quite a lot about and Berg follows the events closely, but is that necessary? What is the goal someone sets out for when making it? Is it to show that a city can be strong and can overcome something like that or is it simply a way for a studio to make money? It was a feeling I kept struggling with while watching. Despite that feeling though Berg manages to portray it all convincingly and it looks frighteningly realistic, including the experience of thos responsible. If you know nothing about the events this brings it all to life, but if you have heard about this than this doesn’t add much. Still, this isn’t a bad movie, but it is one which left an annyoing aftertaste.
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