Shooter Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)March 20th, 2007
SHOOTER
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
SHOOTER, directed by Antoine Fuqua (KING ARTHUR) and adapted by Jonathan Lemkin (LETHAL WEAPON 4) from a Stephen Hunter novel, has a lot of things going for it. The aerial tracking shots of mountain ranges are spectacular, the pyrotechnics are big and colorful and Mark Wahlberg gives a dead-on performance as a sniper with James Bond-like fighting and car-driving skills.
BUT, this is a predictable and preposterous picture with more plot holes than Bonnie-and-Clyde's machine gun riddled car. Laughably bad at key story junctures, the movie is one that will have you and your friends afterwards ticking off all of the parts of the script that were completely ridiculous.
Let's just name a few.
When we first meet Army sniper Bob Lee Swagger (Wahlberg), he and his partner are on a dangerous mission in Ethiopia. When more hostiles show up than expected, the snipers' command post pulls out. Do they bother to tell the snipers they are leaving, since they are all in close communication? No, they cut the comm link and leave their shooters, to fend for themselves or die. The command center doesn't even tell their valuable snipers that they are leaving. This makes no sense and would never happen in the field.
We then cut to three years later, when we meet up again with Swagger, who is now a disillusioned ex-serviceman who has turned into a distrustful hermit. Mumbling so low that his lines are close to indecipherable, Danny Glover plays Colonel Isaac Fitzsimmons Johnson. Johnson comes packing his Congressional Metal of Honor to impress upon Swagger that he is the real deal.
Johnson wants Swagger to figure out how to assassinate the president at a distance of more than a mile. Johnson needs the plans, so his group, which turns out to operate at a high level in some unnamed government agency, can stop another assassin who is about to do the same thing.
If you believe that Johnson is on the up and up, you would be the most gullible person on earth. Actually, you'd be Swagger, since the previously cynical Swagger helps Johnson and provides just the plans needed.
Of course, things don't go as Swagger naively thought they would. Soon every agent in the FBI -- and several other three letter bureaus -- are busy tracking Swagger down, thinking he is the assassin. Brand new FBI agent Nick Memphis (Michael Peņa, WORLD TRADE CENTER), however, is the only man alive who is a little curious about the case and is actually interested in its investigation. Everyone else acts like they involved in a massive cover-up, although only a few are.
With no relatives or friends, Swagger, of course, goes to the home of Sarah Fenn (Kate Mara), his dead partner's wife, to hideout and recuperate. You know this, I know this, and everyone in your audience will know this. The FBI and all of the bad guys, however, don't go there. Why? Sarah started using her maiden name again, which fools all of those fancy FBI computers, which, it turns out, aren't able to track down by people by aliases, Social Security numbers or previous addresses.
And these are a mere fraction of the holes in this Swiss cheese of a script.
SHOOTER runs 2:06. It is rated R for "strong graphic violence and some language" and would be acceptable for most teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Wednesday, March 21, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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