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

Nordic film Fjord challenges cultural and linguistic biases

Sebastian Stan in Fjord

Photo courtesy of Neon

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In modern society, where fear of “the other” has made many people into insular creatures, it has become easy to get locked into one point of view. The new film Fjord will be a challenging one for many viewers, as it puts forth a situation that confronts narrow-minded thinking and forces even those who think they’re open-minded to re-evaluate their own biases.

Mihai (Sebastian Stan) and Lisbet (Renate Reinsve) are a married couple who have just moved back to Lisbet’s home country of Norway. They have five children, all of whom were born in Romania, Mihai’s home country. The family, which is part of an unspecified Evangelical Christian sect, runs into issues almost right away when their oldest daughter, Elia (Vanessa Ceban), shows up to school with bruises on her body.

A well-intentioned but perhaps overzealous Child Protective Services system gets put into motion, resulting in the children being removed from the home while Mihai and Lisbet are being investigated. The parents, while acknowledging some minor physical punishment, deny doing anything that would cause bruising, and the possible failings of the system mostly get ignored despite a lack of hard evidence.

Written and directed by Cristian Mungiu, the film is an infuriating watch due to its depiction of a system that seems to be oblivious to its own faults. But it’s also illuminating, as the cultural and linguistic divide that exists between the characters in the film could just as easily be applied to those viewing it. Misunderstandings arise as people switch between Norwegian, English, and Romanian, and interpretations of different words or phrases play a crucial role in how people and actions are perceived.

But the film is about much more than just language mix-ups. Mungiu is purposefully vague about Mihai and Lisbet’s religion, but it’s clear that it leans conservative. This puts them at odds with a liberal society in Norway, and more than one character voices their disapproval of the family’s beliefs. The film is framed in such a way, though, that it’s those who are seemingly most progressive who can’t get over their own prejudices, with Mihai and Lisbet rarely being able to object to how they’re being treated.

The cold and forbidding landscape adds to the drama of the film, especially when Mungiu includes side stories from Mihai and Lisbet’s neighbors about, for example, a rebellious neighbor daughter or their ailing father. While those elements don’t impact the plot much, they add complexity to the film as a whole and demonstrate that some characters are more than who they seem to be on the surface.

Stan, who’s had notable roles in recent years in A Different Man and The Apprentice, puts in another solid performance that is less showy. With a bald head and stoic-but-firm demeanor, he brings depth to a potentially unlikable character. Reinsve, coming off the success of Backrooms, is the emotional center of the film and demonstrates chemistry with Stan after co-starring in A Different Man. The supporting cast is all solid, especially the actors portraying lawyers, who bring to life a system that seems much different from that in the U.S.

Fjord does not play out like a typical American film would if it were depicting a similar situation, and by holding back where western storytellers wouldn’t, it allows viewers to make up their own minds on who is right or wrong. Many things go unspoken in the film, and the debate on what should happen with Mihai, Lisbet, and their family continues even after the film ends.

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Fjord is now playing in select theaters.

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