A few weeks ago, I reluctantly clicked on the trailer for “Patriots Day.” My stomach turned immediately.
In the two-minute teaser, Sgt. Tommy Saunders, a composite character played by Mark Wahlberg, bemoans his “crossing gaard” police vest, kisses his wife goodbye and then appears at the Boylston Street finish line of the Boston Marathon, where the inevitable is about to happen.
You know — death, destruction and utter panic at the hands of two sadistic, hateful brothers and their homemade pressure-cooker bombs.
As it finished up, I thought, “Wow, I can’t wait for ‘Terrorism: the Musical’ to hit Broadway this spring. Bet they’ll have some awesome souvenirs.”
The mere thought of the horrific events of April 15, 2013, being put on the big screen as a wannabe Hollywood blockbuster was utterly grotesque to me. It felt way too soon to portray the tragedy, and it seemed like a crass way for Wahlberg, whom I generally like, to insert himself as a hero into the horrifying act of terrorism that rocked his beloved hometown.
After all, who could forget when the former underwear model insinuated that he could have stopped 9/11 if he had been on one of the planes? And Wahlberg, in the 2013 movie “Lone Survivor,” portrayed Marcus Luttrell, a Navy Seal fighting the Taliban who, you guessed it, was the only one in his group to survive a deadly battle. It seemed to me you could peel open Wahlberg’s head and see him living in his own video game in which he bravely fights jihadists in different parts of the globe.
Does he have terror FOMO? Who knows. And I ain’t one to gossip.
But I did complain about the trailer to anyone who would listen, asking, “Does this gross you out?”
And then I went to see the movie.
“Patriots Day” opened with vignettes of lives that would be forever changed by the next day’s events. I was still unimpressed. But then, as a former resident of Beantown, I began to feel a kinship with the characters and their seemingly pedestrian but authentic interactions: Watertown, Mass., police Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese’s pleasant exchange with a Dunkin’ Donuts cashier, an exhausted Jessica Kensky returning home from work in scrubs and slain MIT police officer Sean Collier talking excitedly about the Zac Brown Band concert.
The familiarity began to lull me into submission.
Perhaps it was Dun Meng, the carjacked Chinese student, who changed my mind completely. Or the shootout with the tiny Watertown police department. Or the guy who saw his boat had been tampered with. Maybe it was the survivors speaking after the credits rolled.
Or maybe it was how, collectively, people revealed themselves with stories that were lost in the media frenzy — a news cycle that shone the brightest spotlight on the vicious perpetrators.
In the end, the film was a reminder that this crime wasn’t just solved by big, bad G-men in a clandestine room far from the action. Every last bit of resolution was achieved by unlikely superheroes.
“Patriots Day” is an homage to the feisty folks of the greater Boston area.
And the clever use of the day’s footage made it feel more like a properly documented event and less like a tasteless Tinseltown reproduction.
I’ve read that some survivors have mixed feelings about the movie. And when making a film of this magnitude, one mired in emotion and trauma, there’s bound to be dissent.
But many friends in the Boston area who lived through the bombing have asked me, “Is it exploitative? Is it scary?”
My short answer is no.
As Red Sox fan favorite Big Papi said before the first home game after the bombing, this is our f - - king city.
And that was the sentiment I came away with as I walked out of the theater. It was Boston’s moment, not Wahlberg’s.