‘Patriots Day’ is fitting tribute to town’s ability to heal

Director Peter Berg returns to dramatize another of the country’s most notable tragic events with “Patriots Day,” after giving us a better-than-it-could have been “Deepwater Horizon,” a look at the human response to the man-made disaster of the BP oil spill.

It’s understandable that audiences didn’t flock to “Horizon,” as there has perhaps not been enough time to heal and the environmental impact is yet to be determined. And while the tale was an effective thriller about the working-class riggers who battled to stop the disaster, the fact remains that the sting was still being felt. So it was surprising that Berg chose another recent event, the Boston Marathon bombing, as the subject of his next feature.

He again calls upon his muse Mark Wahlberg (now leading his third Berg feature) to anchor the film, and, as in “Horizon,” Berg is more interested in the human response to tragedy than the tragedy itself.

The cops, the survivors, the first responders, the nurses, the investigators who scramble about in the aftermath to simultaneously pick up the pieces and piece things together are the main focus of “Patriots Day.” It was a gamble to dramatize such a recent tragic event, as it requires a delicate balance between respectful and entertaining.

For the majority of “Patriots Day,” Berg nails it - he plants viewers in the middle of the chaotic chase and rebuilding efforts from the city of Boston, led by a top-tier ensemble including John Goodman, Kevin Bacon and J.K. Simmons. And just when it looks like the film may slide into a typical cop shoot-out during the hunt for the Tsarnaev brothers, it roars with a gut-punch of a conclusion.

Wahlberg plays Tommy Saunders, a composite of several Boston cops on duty the day of the attack. It’s the typical Beantown everyman skin in which he is comfortable, but that doesn’t mean he’s not great at it. There isn’t much room for females, apparently, in “Patriots Day.” Michelle Monaghan is wasted as Tommy’s worried wife, which is one of the few roles occupied by ladies in the film. Melissa Benoist (currently playing “Supergirl” on TV) plays Katherine Russell, the American wife of one of the terrorists, and she displays an intensity with nary a word that provides a remarkable moment in the film.

The film skips from streets, to hospitals, to police precincts to federal investigations as the hours tick away and the city scrambles to recover, and locate those responsible for the blast. This is where Berg establishes himself as a superior action director. Unlike the perfectly serviceable “Sully,” another dramatization of a recent event that caught national attention, Berg manages to craft the conclusion into a riveting cat-and-mouse pursuit through the city streets.

It’s an ending that was played out in local media and within the last few years, so it is all fresh in the collective conscious, but Berg has crafted it in a way that is still designed to keep viewers chewing their nails until the capture. And his decision to add testimony from those actually involved only further elevates the emotional exclamation point.

“Patriots Day” is a fitting tribute to a town’s ability to heal together and a testament to the power of community in a time of tremendous loss and pain.