Patriots Day, Peter Berg’s new drama about the Boston Marathon bombing, arrives in theaters less than four years after the attack, which left three people dead and hundreds more wounded. Sensitive to this, star­-coproducer Mark Wahlberg and director-cowriter Peter Berg take great pains to celebrate the humanity of those who were on Boylston Street near the finish line of the race in April 2013, when two pressure-cooker bombs exploded in quick succession, spraying shrapnel across the sidewalk. But Patriots Day functions mainly as a police procedural, chronicling the five-day manhunt for the two lone-wolf jihadists who manufactured the bombs, and in that regard it’s more valuable than any sort of exercise in healing. Within the confines of a hard-charging action flick, Berg and his coscreenwriters present a clear account of how media frenzy and fear of more attacks drove federal and local law enforcement to execute the first military-style lockdown of an American city. Continue reading >>