Boston Marathon Bombing Victims Praise Heroism in Emotional 'Patriots Day' Trailer
By Joey Nolfi, Entertainment Weekly
Hollywood drama meets its real-life inspiration in the new trailer for Patriots Day, Peter Berg’s cinematic retelling of the events surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
In the clip – the second full-length trailer released for the film – Mark Wahlberg, who plays a Boston police officer who joins the FBI in the hunt for the terror suspects, discusses the heroism that inspired the film’s plot.
“When you saw what happened in Boston, those heroes put themselves at risk to help strangers,” he says before Patrick Downes, who lost his leg in the terrorist attack, stresses the importance of remembering the city’s unity during a time of crisis, noting “two people took weeks to plan out hate, but love responded in an instant.”
Patriots Day weaves together the interconnected stories of Special Agent Richard Deslauriers (Kevin Bacon), Police Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman), Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese (J.K. Simmons), and nurse Carol Saunders (Michelle Monaghan) in the moments leading up to and proceeding the April 15, 2013 attack, which ultimately resulted in the deaths of three civilians and two police officers across the impending manhunt for the perpetrators, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
“We’re going to defend ourselves,” Pugliese adds in the trailer as shots of Simmons, his big-screen counterpart, flash onscreen. “We’re not going to be beaten down.”
The film, billed as a “powerful story of a community’s courage in the face of adversity,” had its world premiere as AFI Fest’s closing night presentation on Nov. 17, a prestigious slot previously occupied by Oscar contenders like Adam McKay’s The Big Short, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, and the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis.
Patriots Day opens in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles Wednesday, Dec. 21 before expanding nationwide on Jan. 13. Watch the film’s second trailer above.
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