‘Patriots Day’ Under Fire Due to Claims of Unfair Portrayal of Bomber’s Widow
When it comes to making “true story” movies, there’s always a certain sense of pressure on everyone involved to be as true to the real events as the movie allows. That’s what Mark Wahlberg and co. were most concerned with when it came to making Patriots Day, but it appears their attempt to “do it right” still left some people in the dust. Now, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow Katherine Russell says that the movie’s portrayal of her is unjust and “unfair.”
According to the Associated Press (via The Hollywood Reporter), Russell claims that the film mischaracterizes her completely, portraying her as uncooperative and curt with law enforcement while in reality, according to her and her lawyer Amato DeLuca, she was the opposite:
It's just not true. I have no objection to them making a movie.… What I quarrel with is the license they take in portraying Katie as someone who did not cooperate and try to save lives. She did everything she could.… It just feeds into this belief that people like Katie would place themselves above the country and above their patriotism, because she's a Muslim. She did what any of us would have done.
Apparently the film ends with text on the screen providing updates on where each of the characters are now. Russell’s states that law enforcement is still looking for information that ties her to the bombings, to which her lawyer replied, “That’s news to me.” In the same AP report, a former special agent who was in charge of Boston’s FBI office during the bombings says he believes the portrayal is “on base.”
If Russel’s version of events is true, it’s a troubling snag in Patriots Day’s campaign to claim that everyone involved did all they could to create an honest retelling of events.
Patriots Day is now playing.