From the ‘wicked’ good day’ to the ‘chow-dah head’ the immediate Boston tone is prevalent. Anyone who grew up there (and Screen Queen is one of them) knows that there’s only one of two things you do on Patriots day: Go to the marathon or go to Fenway ‘Pahk’ [Park].
Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg) is just an ordinary officer whose duties on this fine day of fresh air, sunshine and pretty girls, is to be a crossing guard at the Boston Marathon…America’s oldest marathon.
The morning of the event, we meet those who will eventually be the crowds and bystanders. There’s the Mass General patient with stage four cancer, there’s the rookie cop, and there’s a Pizza guy and the Dunkin Donuts girl.There’s the MIT students testing robotic limbs…a harrowing reminder of things to come. Finally, there’s the dad with a two-year-old in a baby stroller.
Stashed in a small apartment nearby is the plotting-terrorist brothers (Alex Wolff and Themo Melikidze). One has a wife and a small child.
For the audience, this first bit of the film is the knowledge of things to come. But coming from director, Peter Berg, Lone Survivor and Deep Horizon, don’t’ expect feel good or even an uplifting ending. Terrorism isn’t going anyplace soon.
The problem with the film is while it’s heroic, we never feel that it’s quite necessary. Wahlberg’s character of an officer – carrying a whistle and a stop sign – never seems to come to life in any massively heroic way. When his annoying wife is on screen whining as they declare their love for each other, we long to be back to the meat of the story.
But what this film is about is the police teams’ coordination in the aftermath. It’s a cohesive force of crime scene recreation. It’s bloody cell phones, the ‘blinkah’ in the car, the sharp Asian boy who remembers his stolen car’s tracking device number, and its surveillance cameras on Boylston Street as FBI agent (Kevin Bacon), City Commissioner (John Goodman) and Sargent (J. K. Simmons) work together to find the culprit. And that’s okay, because that’s the film’s strength. It’s Boston Strong.
Sidenote: For years I was VIP at the rooftop of the Lenox Hotel, sipping champagne and looking down to where this event ends at its finish line. The joke always being the Kenyans nail it every year. Now, when I think of the Boston Marathon, I think of my daughter’s backyard one fence over from where they found the terrorist hiding in the boat. I think of sad, but I think of proud, too.