12 Most Desperate Oscar Grab Movies Of 2016

If Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg’s recent career choices are anything to go by, they’re both gunning for the Oscars and seem to want to do it hand in hand.

They’ve collaborated on two 2016 releases focusing on real-life tragedies – first in Deepwater Horizon, a disaster flick about the 2010 oil rig explosion, and most recently in Patriots Day, about the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. But while Deepwater Horizon boasts slightly better reviews and a heroic story, Patriots Day has both a heroic story and terrorism.

Let’s just say that using recent terrorist attacks on American soil didn’t hurt United 93 or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which both went on to receive two Academy Award nominations each.

However, there’s something a bit ‘too soon’ about the movie’s subject matter and amidst its laudatory reviews, Patriots Day has been accused of glamorising the tragic events Boston experienced that day and Wahlberg of reducing his character to a ‘hackneyed Masshole’ (which we’re guessing is an !*$% from Massachusetts). Maybe not such an Oscar clincher after all.