Patriot's Day

When it comes to making “true story” movies, there’s always a certain sense of pressure on everyone involved to be as true to the real events as the movie allows. That’s what Mark Wahlberg and co. were most concerned with when it came to making Patriots Day, but it appears their attempt to “do it right” still left some people in the dust. Now, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow Katherine Russell says that the movie’s portrayal of her is unjust and “unfair.”

When making a movie about any real historical tragedy, especially if it’s recent, there’s an onus on the people behind the project to be true to the material. No one in Hollywood, save for maybe the Afflecks, loves Boston more than Mark Wahlberg, and he’s said before that his prime concern with making Patriots Day, a drama about the Boston Marathon bombings, is “getting it right.” A new trailer before this week’s release of the film hammers that point home even further, with footage from the movie intercut with statements from the real people who were there that day.

Noted actor, model and erstwhile Funky Bunch member Mark Wahlberg raised a few eyebrows in 2012 when he claimed that had he boarded the planes used for the September 11 terrorist attacks, things would have gone down a little differently. Suggesting that you could have singlehandedly prevented the most traumatic disaster in American history is big talk, but now Wahlberg will get the chance to pretend to put the money where his terrorist-fighting mouth is with Patriots Day, a dramatization of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. We may be too late for a Mark Wahlberg-led United 93 reimagined as a two-hour beatdown, but this looks like the next best thing.

When you make a movie about any sort of national disaster, especially one still so far in the forefront of the American consciousness as the 2013 Boston marathon bombings, it’s important to treat the film’s subjects with respect. You can’t sacrifice the truth just to put in some fictional drama, and director Peter Berg knows this, opting instead to involve as many people as possible in Patriots Day who were there on the day of the bombings. A new featurette, which came out today, shows how Berg and his associates, along with the film’s stars, did everything they could to provide a sense of authenticity to the film.

Director Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg are tackling two devastating events in recent American history in their latest films. Following the recent Deepwater Horizon, the filmmaker and actor’s next film this year will follow the tragedy of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing in Patriots Day.

Peter Berg’s Patriots Day, about the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings and the hunt for the culprits, seems like an odd choice for the director of Battleship, Hancock, and the Friday Night Lights movie. But Berg’s latest film Deepwater Horizon shows his interests also lie in adapting true stories to film — or, at least, making true stories more exciting. Now that the dynamic movie score duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are set to create the soundtrack for the movie, Patriots Day could be Berg’s next big hit.

Few actors — nay, few human beings — are more associated with the city of Boston than Mark Wahlberg. Since he first introduced the world to his Funky Bunch in the early ’90s, he’s been closely tied to Beantown. Even as he’s become a huge movie star he’s maintained his ties with Boston, rooting loudly for its sports franchises and starring in many movies set in and around the area (The Perfect Storm, Ted).