Film

“Say hi to your mother for me!”

Marathon man

The latest collaboration between director Peter Berg and actor Mark Wahlberg, Patriots Day, stands as not only a valuable tribute to the victims and heroes of the Boston Marathon bombings, but a solid, meaningful, gritty look at what it took to take down the terrorist Tsarnaev brothers.

Wahlberg plays Sgt. Tommy Saunders, another one of those fictional composite characters that often show up in historical dramas. You may forgive this kind of artistic license, because the goal of Patriots Day is to take you through the entire drama, from the bombing itself, through to the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff) inside a boat in somebody’s backyard.

There probably wasn’t a single person who was at all of the events leading to the ultimate capture of the final living suspect in the bombings. It’s best to just view the Wahlberg character as a partial representation of the heroism and diligence that led to that arrest.

The film begins with Saunders bitching about being on street security detail for the Boston Marathon, serving out a probationary period on the Boston police force. He shows up in the “clown suit,” takes some ribbing from fellow cops and detectives, but generally sports a good attitude and does the gig with an admirable level of conviction. The event itself actually gets his spirits a little up. Then, as runners are crossing the finish line, the bombs go off.

The film doesn’t shy away from the carnage caused by those bombs and the tragic mess they left behind, and it shouldn’t. It earns its R rating. The movie dives into the bombing aftermath, then straight into the investigation and tense standoffs that occurred in rapid succession.

Wahlberg has done some of his best work in Berg films (Deepwater Horizon and Lone Survivor), and this film represents the apex of their collaborations. Yes, the character he’s playing isn’t totally real, but it’s an honorable deviation.

Wolff is on target as the baseball cap-wearing, oblivious douche that doesn’t know how to say no to his brother. There’s nothing sympathetic about the portrayal of his brand of evil in this movie. He’s a cold-hearted, ignorant villain, and Wolff captures that essence. As Dzhokhar’s older brother, and bombing mastermind, Tamerlan, Themo Melikidze delivers a chilling rendition of radicalism and psychotic egotism. Michelle Monaghan is effective as Saunders’ wife, as are John Goodman as police commissioner Ed Davis and Kevin Bacon as FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers. J.K. Simmons is hard edged and a little bit funny as Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese, who took part in the showdown that claimed the life of Tamerlan. Jimmy O. Yang is memorable as the man the brothers carjacked. This is definitely one of 2016’s better ensembles. While the film got a wide release in 2017, it got a limited release last year to qualify Patriots Day for awards considerations. Berg, like Jeff Nichols (Midnight 12345 Special, Loving) had two good movies in 2016 with this and Deepwater Horizon. Director: Peter Berg He’s no stranger to historical Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Alex Wolff drama. Ever since Berg nearly derailed his promising directorial career with the abysmal Battleship, it’s all he’s done on the big screen. Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon and now Patriots Day, all Wahlberg collaborations, are based on real-life events. Much to Berg’s credit, all of those events are represented with great detail, emotional honesty and integrity. They are also very entertaining. Right now, he’s kicking Spielberg’s ass in the historical drama department. The film is about heroes, the heroes who worked to find the perpetrators, and the selfless, persevering heroes who were standing close to an explosive device when it went off. You’ll walk away from this movie feeling that Berg, Wahlberg and company did all of these good people justice with Patriots Day. Most importantly, it’s a moving tribute to those who lost their lives. Some might say “too soon” for the existence of a film such as this one. I say it’s never too soon to honor the good people of Boston. Ω

2A Monster Calls This is a well-meaning movie with good heart, but it was better when it was called TheIronGiant. J.A. Bayona’s film of the Patrick Ness book tells the tale of Conor (Lewis MacDougall), a young boy whose mother (Felicity Jones) is dying. Conor is, understandably, having issues, not just with the impending loss of his mother, but bullies at school and a domineering grandma (Sigourney Weaver) he doesn’t quite understand. When things come to a boil, a tree monster (voice of Liam Neeson) shows up to offer guidance and tough love. MacDougall gives a respectable performance, as do Jones and Weaver, but the film never really works as a whole. The relationship between the boy and the imaginative monster never makes much sense, so the human interactions wind up being far more interesting. Problem is, this movie is called AMonsterCalls, and much of the film leans on the effectiveness of the monster scenes. There are moments where everything jells, but just moments.

4Hidden Figures Katherine Johnson, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the last century—and still going at age 98—gets the movie she deserves with HiddenFigures, an entertaining, enlightening and educational look at the contributions of her and her cohorts to NASA and space flight in the late 1950s and after. Johnson was part of a segregated division at NASA in the ’50s, a wing of mathematicians who did the work that actual computers do today. The movie depicts the humiliation she and two other historical African-American figures, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, went through while solving equations that helped put men safely into space and return them to their families. The women had to put up with a lot of racist bullshit on their way to, during and after work, and the film shows their hardships, albeit in PG fashion. There was a stretch where Johnson was making monumental calculations for the likes of Alan Shepard, yet she wasn’t allowed to use bathrooms in her building or drink from the same coffee pot as her white counterparts. Taraji P. Henson plays Johnson, the “smart one” astronaut John Glenn personally demanded check the coordinates before his historical flight launched. Octavia Spencer is her usual great self as Vaughan, doing the work of a supervisor without the title and curious about that new IBM thing they just installed down the hall. Vaughan would become crucial to the implementation of computers at NASA, as well as being the agency’s first African-American supervisor. As Jackson, NASA’s first female African-American aeronautical engineer, singer Janelle Monae is so good, it’s easy to forget that this is just her second movie role. As a composite, fictional character named Al Harrison, Kevin Costner does some of his best acting in years.

5La La Land This is an all new, original musical from director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) that’s surprisingly low on melodrama while full of vibrancy, beautiful tunes, outstanding set pieces and a stunning sense of realism for a movie where the characters bust out singing. It’s the best original movie musical ever made. The story follows wannabe actress Mia (Emma Stone) and jazz composer Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) as they try to make it in crazy Los Angeles. They meet, they don’t like each other much at first, but then they fall in love, which provides Chazelle and his performers ample opportunities for musical numbers that surprise at every turn. In one of the year’s greatest scenes, the film opens on an L.A. traffic jam that evolves into a full-blown dance number featuring many extras and top notch editing and camera work that make the whole thing look like one shot. This solidifies Gosling as one of the best actors of his generation. He can wow you with insightful indies and carry big budget blockbusters. Now, with LaLaLand, he takes his game to a new level. He proves he can pretty much do anything when it comes to movie characters. He can sing with the best of them, he’s definitely no slouch when it comes to dancing, and he sure can play the piano after a few months of intensive training for the movie. Stone doesn’t just make her mark with a beautiful voice and expert footwork—she embodies the character with the honest and almost tragic drive to “make it” in the business.

5Manchester By the Sea Be prepared to get your heart ripped out by Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams in this—one of the more emotionally powerful movie experiences of 2016. Affleck plays Lee, uncle to Patrick (Lucas Hedges), who must return to his hometown and raise his nephew after his brother (Kyle Chandler) dies. Lee is a true mess, and we learn through flashbacks what got him to his messed up state. He’s battling some major past tragedy on top of his brother’s death, and there’s no telling how things will work out for him and Patrick. The flashbacks are brutal, revealing things that go beyond terrible, and it’s no wonder Lee has coping issues. Affleck has turned in good work before, but nothing like what he does in this film. He’s incredible. Williams turns in a blistering performance as Lee’s ex-wife, and a scene Affleck and Williams share together is guaranteed to knock you on your ass, and will probably earn them both Oscar nominations. Hedges is mighty good as the confused teen dealing with the loss of his dad and the presence of his somewhat strange uncle. Kenneth Lonergan directs from his own screenplay, and he’s put together some kind of movie miracle. His last big film was YouCanCountOnMe16 years ago.

2Passengers Two of Hollywood’s biggest, most lovable stars labor away in the pretty but dumb

Passengers, a movie that doesn’t have the guts to be as ugly as it should be. Chris Pratt plays

Jim Preston, a mechanic dedicated to starting a life on a distant planet. He and 5,000 other passengers are in suspended animation aboard a ship taking a 125-year journey. That ship has an unfortunate encounter with a meteor shower, and Jim’s sleeping pod awakens him … with 90 years to go on the trip. What to do, what to do, what to do? Jim gets it into his mind to do a very bad thing, and that’s when

Jennifer Lawrence’s character comes into play.

The movie is good-looking for sure, and I really liked the design of the ship. That’s essentially what’s keeping Passengersfrom getting my lowest rating. That, and the fact that Jennifer

Lawrence really can act, even when she’s in a junk-food movie. She can salvage the most mundane of dialogue and almost make it sound good. Almost. Passengerswon’t frustrate you so much for what it is, as for what it could have been. Imagine if somebody like Stanley

Kubrick got ahold of this premise. Oh man, that would’ve been a movie to be reckoned with.

This could’ve been one of the sickest science fiction epics since Alien.

4Rogue One: A Star Wars Story There was a quick little moment in the very first StarWars(now known as

StarWarsEpisodeIV:ANewHope) where a character mentions rebels possibly obtaining vulnerability secrets regarding the Death

Star. That group of people actually gets their own movie in RogueOne:AStarWarsStory, a

StarWarsspinoff that’s technically another prequel. In fact, it tells a story that leads right up to where ANewHopebegins. It’s also a little different from your typical StarWarsmovie in that it doesn’t mainly deal with the Skywalker saga—although a couple of them make notable appearances—and doesn’t prominently feature the John Williams score (although that makes some appearances, as well). Director

Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) goes for something a little different here, a tonal shift that reminds of the big change TheEmpireStrikesBack brought to the saga. The result is a different kind of StarWarsfilm that’s immensely entertaining and fun. Felicity Jones is terrific as Jyn, a woman who finds herself with strange ties to the Death Star, and becomes part of the effort to destroy it. StarWarsfans will delight in all of the tie-ins and cameos, while newcomers will simply have a blast with an action movie that delivers on many fronts. 01.12.17 | RN&R | 17