First 'Patriots Day' Teaser: Mark Wahlberg Faces the Boston Marathon Bombing

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Mark Wahlberg can currently be seen in theaters battling a fiery oil-rig disaster in Peter Berg’s Deepwater Horizon. But that’s only the first of his two collaborations with the director this year to focus on everyday men and women contending with catastrophic circumstances. In December, they’ll also deliver Patriots Day, a drama about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent search for its perpetrators, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. From the looks of its just-released first trailer, above, it’ll be the tissue-requiring, tragic-but-inspiring melodrama to beat this holiday season.

In the film, Wahlberg plays one of the many police officers assigned to work the marathon on that fateful April 15. In this debut teaser, we get a taste of his family life with his wife (Michelle Monaghan) before he heads out to his shift, including some teasing over his day-glo vest (whether he’s playing one of the cops captured in the haunting Sports Illustrated cover image, below, remains unknown). His quiet, jovial race-day activities, however, are shattered when the bombs go off near the finish line — a moment that is only obliquely depicted here, via some shakes of the camera, dull far-off noises, and close-ups of horrified faces both during and after the explosions, which Berg sets to the mournful strains of “America the Beautiful.”

Featuring John Goodman as Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, and co-staring Kevin Bacon and J.K. Simmons, Patriots Day will no doubt pay rousing tribute to Boston’s resilience when it premieres in theaters on Dec. 21.