Tommy Saunders in Patriots Day (2016)
Tommy Saunders, the hero of the Boston Marathon bombing drama Patriots Day, doesn’t really exist. As played by Mark Wahlberg, he is present for all of the key events of April 15, 2013, from the finish-line bombing to the capture of one of the bombers, leading some critics to complain that Wahlberg sought a self-aggrandizing role in the film about his hometown tragedy.
But no, director Peter Berg told The Washington Post: In truth, the filmmakers wanted Saunders to represent the heroism of many police officers. He’s a composite — a combination of several real people — like many of the fictional heroes on this list.
“It was better to [have a fictitious character] than to pretend there was this big cop who did all sorts of things he didn’t really do, which would have really angered the entire Boston Police Department,” Berg said. “So when we said we were going to composite up that character, everybody was really OK with it. It made it more real, I think, because there really was no supercop — it was a team effort.”
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