Democrats are busy dissing president-elect Donald Trump, boycotting the inauguration and making noise. Trump has been busy charting his battle plan, but he might pick up some support and encouragement from a glance at Patriot’s Day, now in theatres. Like millions of others, he already knows the story.
The annual Boston Marathon hosts thousands of athletes and spectators from around the world. In 2013, Muslim terrorists Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who hail from Chechnya, decided to see how many infidels they could kill by bombing the event.
Patriot’s Day does a good job recreating the Marathon, the bombing, and the aftermath. The carnage surpasses the famous rail yard scene in Gone With the Wind for detail, and the message is clear: terrorist bombs kill innocent people and inflict huge human suffering. Viewers also get a sense of how political correctness hinders the response.
FBI man Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon) hesitates to classify the bombings as terrorism because the folks in Washington are worried about “anti-Muslim backlash.” It is as though somebody firebombed a Starbucks, but when the FBI man sees the hard evidence, he makes the call. It’s terrorism, and the hunt is on.
The hunters include Boston cop Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg), Watertown cop Jeffrey Pugliese (J.K. Simmons) and Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman). The people of Boston aid the search by handing in their cell phones and Dzokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff) and his brother Tamerlan (Themo Melkidze) turn up in the videos.
Patriots Day does a fair job of bringing the Muslims into focus. The Tsarnaevs hate American civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King, whom they call “hypocrite” and a “fornicator.” They communicate with other terrorists online, and prepare their bombs with great care.
The bonus here is Tamerlan’s wife Katherine Russell (Mellissa Benoist). The American Muslim convert makes it clear that Islam is all about complete submission for women. That holds true even if the Muslim husband blows innocent women and children to bits and guns down a police officer in the street. Islamic submission means that she protects him at all costs.
“Are there more bombs?” asks the interrogator (Khandi Alexander). She gets no answer, but it turns out there were more bombs.
After Boston, the Tsarnaevs’ plan is to finish their mission and bomb New York City, so they carjack mild-mannered Chinese student Dun Meng (Jimmy Yang). Meng manages to escape and gets one of the film’s best lines when he tips off the cops: “You’ve got to find those mother******s!” he says.
The cops track down the Tsarnaevs in nearby Watertown. The ensuing firefight gives some idea of what the police are up against. Pugliese takes town Tamerlan but Dzokhar gets away and hides in a boat. A veritable army of cops finally takes him into custody, and the cheers ring out all over town.
The film should have ended there, or perhaps with the tribute to the dead and wounded. Patriots Day brings in Gov. Deval Patrick (Michael Beach) and even some footage of President Obama’s completely unconvincing speech for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. This the same president who called the Fort Hood attack, with 13 murder victims, a case of “workplace violence.” This is the same president who told the UN the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.
The film makes it clear that the Tsarnaev brothers were on some kind of terrorist “watch list,” but Patriot’s Day ignores the real back story. Russian intelligence warned U.S. officials of the Tsarnaevs’ terrorist connections. They never should have been allowed in the United States, but they were. They should have been deported, but they weren’t. Dzokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death, but the sentence had not been carried out.
The Obama administration colonized the United States with unvettable Muslim refugees, so viewers can have little doubt that many other terrorists remain in the country. The film makes a strong case for keeping radical Islamic terrorists “the hell out of our country,” as Donald Trump wants to do.
As police commissioner in Patriots Day, John Goodman doesn’t get to make such an argument. But as Goodman said in The Big Lebowski, whatever you think about the tenets of National Socialism, at least that was an ethos. Muslims like the Tsarnaevs are on a divine crusade to kill, maim and subjugate non-Muslims. That too is not even an ethos, but that it is what Islamic terrorists are all about. Patriots Day shows radical Islamic terrorism in action, with all the death, destruction and human suffering it causes.
Meanwhile, “are there more bombs” and more terrorist bombers in cities across America even now? Viewers of Patriot’s Day will consider that a valid question. So the task for the new president, as Jimmy Yang said, is to “find those mother******s” and take them down by any means necessary. As in Boston, the people will be happy to lend a hand.