Movie Review

Patriots Day is too patriotic for its own good

In my opinion, writer/director Peter Berg built up a lot of goodwill for himself with Deepwater Horizon, a film that honored the lives of the people on the ill-fated oil rig thanks to solid storytelling, a lack of clichés, and you-are-there action sequences. Just a few months later, he has lost the benefit of the doubt with Patriots Day, which essentially does the exact opposite of the first film.

Both movies tackle relatively recent real-life events (the Deepwater Horizon accident occurred in 2010, while the Boston bombings took place in 2013), so the difference between the two has less to do with the “too soon” aspect as it does with how the events are handled.

Mark Wahlberg again stars for Berg, this time as Tommy Saunders, a beleaguered Boston cop assigned to work near the finish line at the 2013 Boston Marathon. He’s thus in prime position to respond when two bombs go off, killing three people and injuring scores more.

The film takes on not just the bombing, but also the ensuing manhunt in which Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman), FBI agent Richard DesLauriers, and their teams try to find the two suspected bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze and Alex Wolff).

The first mistake Berg commits is having Wahlberg portray a fictional composite character. Unlike Deepwater Horizon, where Wahlberg played a real person who reacted as a real person would, Saunders manages to show up at every significant turn in the story, as if he were the most important person on the force. If ever there was a team effort, it was this manhunt, but time and again we see Saunders literally searching the streets on his own or challenging authority when things aren’t moving fast enough.

Berg also brings in too many characters, or at least tries to delve into the personal lives of too many of them. Real people affected by the bombing or bombers are introduced at the very beginning of the film, and the sheer number of characters spreads the movie much too thin, causing confusion as to who is and isn’t important. It’s obvious that Berg wants to make sure that anyone who was affected gets honored in some manner, but the way in which he presents many of them in the film just doesn’t work as he intended.

And then there’s curious use of humor in the film. Using jokes to break the tension in an otherwise serious movie is a time-tested tradition, but it’s something that should be used sparingly and with care, so as not to upset the tone of the film. Berg throws caution to the wind with his jokes, inserting them whenever he pleases.

The most egregious example comes during a climactic gunfight with the two bombers in the Boston suburb of Watertown. As the police officers fight for their life, one of them, apropos of absolutely nothing except to appeal to the basest instincts of audiences, yells out while firing, “Welcome to Watertown, bitch!”

Patriots Day winds up being a film that tries to honor the people of Boston a bit too much. In trying to present everyone, save for the two bombers, in the best possible light, Berg goes overboard, losing perspective in the process. The inclusion of interviews with the real people involved at the end of movie indicates what he should have done in the first place: make a documentary.

Mark Wahlberg in Patriots Day.

Mark Wahlberg in Patriots Day

Photo courtesy of CBS Films

Mark Wahlberg in Patriots Day.

Movie Review

Much-anticipated film sequel Gladiator II tells a very familiar story

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II.

There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.

The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).

Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.

Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.

Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.

The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.

Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.

Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.

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Gladiator II opens in theaters on November 22.

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