Mark Wahlberg's Patriots Day Trailer Is Harrowing And Emotional, Watch It Now

As Deepwater Horizon attracts audiences to theaters with its harrowing tale of true-life survival, Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg want you to know that they have another fact-based human drama thriller coming to theaters by the end of the year, this one based on the bombing at the Boston Marathon in 2013. Patriots Day just dropped its first official trailer, and its somber and chilling. Check it out now:

As you can tell by the trailer, Patriots Day will follow Sgt. Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg) on the fateful day that two men planted two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the annual marathon. IMDB notes that the plot of the movie also will relate to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman), and the actions he was forced to take immediately after the terrorist attack, because a manhunt soon ensued in and around Boston -- a hunt that was televised across the major network news outlets, for all the world to see.

The trailer suggests that, much like Deepwater Horizon, Peter Berg's Patriots Day is going to focus on the human aspects of the heroism that was displayed not only on that day, but in the difficult days that followed. We spend a good amount of time with Wahlberg's character, at home with his supportive wife (Michelle Monaghan) before the shit hits the fan. And while the trailer downplays the actual explosion, we get shots of J.K. Simmons and John Goodman reacting emotionally to the devastation that too many real people had to witness that day.

However, if you saw either Lone Survivor or Deepwater Horizon (and you should see both, if you haven't yet), you also know that Berg's getting much better at staging real-life disasters. His work on the burning set of Deepwater had me convinced that his cast -- including Mark Wahlberg -- was in grave danger filming the intense scenes. Something tells me the actual bomb scene in Patriots Day is going to be a tough, but accurate, sequence to endure.

Here's what we know about Patriots Day. In addition to Wahlberg, Monaghan, Goodman and Simmons, the true-life drama stars Melissa Benoist, Kevin Bacon (shown, briefly, in this first footage), and Lana Condor of X-Men: Apocalypse. It was racing a similar Boston Marathon bombing movie, this one starring Jake Gyllenhaal, called Stronger, that's in post-production with a 2017 release date planned. Patriots Day will have a limited release on December 21 -- for Oscar consideration -- and then go wide on January 13.