The thing I found most incredible watching this documentary was how it’s been 10 years already. I remember when the bombings happened and it absolutely shook everyone to the core, so to know that so much time has passed since then is crazy.

The Boston marathon bombing happened when two men, brothers, decided to cause countless casualties and kill innocents in the name of a religion that they had idolised in a way that fit their agenda but didn’t actually follow the words of the religion itself. A problem we see a lot in society these days. These two men then went on a wild goose chase with the police and affected more lives, including killing a police officer and hijacking a car with possibly one of the most bravest men I have ever seen inside of it.

Dun Meng was the man in the car that the Boston bombers hijacked and he had to deal with knowing that he was trapped in this car with these killers and if he did not find a way to escape he would ultimately die at their hands too. Incredibly heroically, when the men pulled over to get some gas from a gas station Dun fled the vehicle and let the attendants know that he was in the car with the Boston bombers, and gave them so much information on his car to be able to track them down. I cannot imagine what I would do in that situation, and you always want to do the best that you can to bring these horrific people to justice but when you have to think about number one I don’t know if my fight or flight response would make the right decision or what would happen in the end.

After a multi-day manhunt which included completely shutting down the city the lone living brother was finally captured and to this day is still waiting execution in prison. I find it fascinating that yes, there were two bombers, but one was killed at the hand of his own brother when during a shootout he ran him over in his getaway vehicle. I can’t imagine how indoctrinated you would have to be, to be willing to potentially kill your own flesh and blood to save yourself. It seems like cowardice to me and it makes me feel disgusted and terrified that these sorts of people live out there and could possibly be part of our communities.

But the wonderful thing about this documentary was showing how Boston hasn’t lost its vitality and love of life and how they still have this marathon go ahead, and how when this man was charged with the attack they could finally rest easily knowing that it was all over. Of course their lives have been changed forever but there’s one last bad guy on the streets now.

This documentary is very hard to watch because it doesn’t hold anything back, from its witness accounts to the footage that was shot during the bombing, but I think it’s good to know what happened and good to keep your wits about you on how these sort of things can easily happen again and what to do in that sort of situation. It’s a very moving documentary but one that I’m glad was made because even though I knew what happened during the bombings, I didn’t know about all the aftermath and often when these big events happen it is the aftermath that gets forgotten, along with the survivors and the people that will never forget.

What do you think of the documentary?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding