PATRIOTS DAY – INSPIRING SURVIVORS

Lone Survivor, Saving Private Ryan, The Passion of the Christ, all come to mind. These movies document the suffering and courage of people who  fight against terrible evil: Al Queda, Nazis, the Devil himself. Patriots Day is such a movie.

Patriots Day revolves around the men and women involved as victims, first responders, investigators, or keys in the relay race of evidence and capture of the Muslim terrorists who set off bombs at the Boston Marathon 2013.

The title of this article is intended to be two fold. This movie is about survivors who are inspiring, who, in turn inspire other survivors. Every American, faithful to the tenets on which our country was founded, should watch this movie.

Mark Wahlberg plays Tommy Saunders, the main protagonist but also the only major character not based on a single individual, but who is a composite of a number of first responders and police. Every other featured character is based on an individual real person.

In a bit of humor and irony Saunders is a detective under threat of suspension for an undetailed error who is on his last day in the dog house – Saunders must, Providentially for everyone involved,  spend one more day in uniform at the finish line of the Marathon. So a highly trained official is there at ground zero to help begin the coordination of the rescue and evidence gathering and ultimately the capture of the two bombers.

It starts slowly and plays out like a well edited documentary – which is meant to be a compliment. The film shows essential moments in time, at first seemingly unrelated,  parsed from post-event interviews, surveillance camera footage, security reports and other such transcripts. So it also starts a bit jumpily – moving quickly from introduction of characters to first responder moments to investigators’ efforts and ultimately to the moments and people at the edges of the net which finally captures the Muslim terrorists.

While not as graphic as Saving Private Ryan, do be aware that there are moments and images which adults, much less young teens, may find visceral, so use caution in deciding who should attend. Also, the language is understandably rough. Sometimes it seems like the only adjective anyone in Boston knows begins with the letter “F”. However, under most of the circumstances it is certainly not gratuitous.

I once witnessed a car accident and watched as several men – bystanders – launched themselves towards the smoking car to aid the passengers. Such bravery is on display here.

We owe it to the real people involved in the 2013 attack on our fellow citizens to see this movie. We owe it to history to be witnesses even second hand. We owe it to the surviving victims maimed in body but undaunted in spirit. We owe it to the first responders – whether official or civilian – who ran TOWARDS the source of ultimate danger to do what they could for the injured and vulnerable. We owe it to the investigators who worked tirelessly to literally piece together what happened. We owe it to the men and women who stood their ground against monsters shooting guns and throwing bombs in normally quiet residential areas. We owe it to the police and soldiers who open doors and step into rooms, knowing it might be their last act on Earth, in order to stop terrorists. We, survivors ourselves of the great evils in the war against Western civilization in general and the Judeo-Christian faith in particular, owe it to ourselves to be inspired by the survivors’ tremendous courage, faith and valor, who lived to witness the 2013 Patriots Day terrorist attack. And we owe it to those who did not survive to witness for them.