Patriots Day

On April 15, 2013, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev detonate two bombs during the Boston Marathon, causing widespread panic. A young couple, Patrick Downes and Jessica Kesky, are injured and taken to separate hospitals, where they’re both required to have their legs amputated; while family man Steve Woolfenden is injured and separated from his young son, Leo, who is rescued by the police and taken to a safe location.

FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers is assigned to investigate the bombings in collaboration with Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and Watertown Police Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese, while Police Sergeant Tommy Saunders searches for evidence and helps people that have been injured or separated from their loved ones in the chaos, including Patrick and Jessica as well as Steven and Leo. FBI analysts review footage of the bombing and identify Dzhokhar and Tamerlan as suspects, but DesLauriers is reluctant to release their pictures to the public without further evidence. His hand is forced when the pictures are leaked to the press, while Pugliese’s men begin conducting door-to-door searches for the pair.

Attempting to lie low, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan kill officer Sean Collier to steal his gun and carjack student Dun Meng, announcing their plans to conduct another bombing in New York City. As Tamerlan is waiting for his brother at the gas station, Meng is able to escape the car and call the police. Saunders arrives at the scene, learns of the brothers’ plan and is given the stolen car’s GPS tracker code, leading police to the pair’s hideout. The ensuing shootout sees several officers injured, while Tamerlan is shot by Pugliese and run over by Dzhokhar, killing him. Dzhokhar escapes in the chaos; meanwhile, Tamerlan’s wife Katherine Russell and Dzhokhar’s college friends are later detained and questioned, but Katherine refuses to disclose any knowledge of her husband’s illegal activities, while Dzhokhar’s friends appear oblivious to his plans, despite having earlier found bomb components in his possessions. A local man later finds Dzhokhar hiding under the sheets of his boat and calls the police. Dzhokhar is quickly surrounded and arrested after a brief standoff, as Saunders and his colleagues celebrate. The Boston police are invited to attend a Boston Red Sox game, where David Ortiz thanks them for their heroism.

The epilogue reveals that Dzhokhar has been sentenced to death by lethal injection and is awaiting for an appeal in federal prison, his college friends were arrested for obstructing the investigation and that Russell is still under investigation for her possible involvement. The authorities responsible for the investigation and the survivors of the bombing then give statements celebrating Boston’s newfound sense of unity.

Classification 15