Like the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, the Boston Marathon bombing is now the subject of a film from director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg. Deepwater Horizon hit theaters six years after the real-life event and earned a few good reviews and some decent box office numbers. Patriots Day, however, will go before critics and theatergoers just four years after the brutal terrorist attack that killed four people and injured 264 more.
As our own Mike Ryan found out while interviewing the pair for Deepwater Horizon, neither thinks Patriots Day is too soon. And judging by the first teaser trailer released by CBS Films, it seems Berg, Wahlberg and everyone else involved with the film (and its marketing) is doing right by the city of Boston. Aside from a few short lines between Wahlberg’s Sgt. Tommy Saunders and Michelle Monaghan’s Carol Saunders, the trailer offers viewers few opportunities for Hollywood-esque Boston accent jokes a la films like The Departed and The Town. What’s more, whoever cut the trailer made the smart (and sympathetic) decision not to bombard viewers with Michael Bay-like cuts of the two explosions and their immediate aftermath. Instead, the latter half of the teaser consists mainly of reaction shots by Wahlberg and Monaghan, as well as fellow cast members John Goodman, Kevin Bacon and J.K. Simmons.
Patriots Days gets a limited U.S. release on December 21, 2016, followed by a wide release on Jan. 13, 2017.
