Shooter (2007)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
Written by Jonathan Lemkin
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Michael Pena, Danny Glover, Kate Mara, Rhona Mitra
Release Date March 23rd, 2007
Published March 23rd, 2007
Mark Wahlberg is on the verge of major superstardom. Coming off his Oscar nominated performance in The Departed, Wahlberg is one major starring role away from that rarefied air of a 20 million dollar man. Unfortunately, his latest starring role, Shooter, is not the career transforming movie he was looking for. An abysmal mess of action movie cliches, Shooter is a step backward, in fact, for Wahlberg who delivers one of the least appealing performances of his career.
Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) is one of the best snipers in the world. As demonstrated early in the movie, he can take out a can of beef stew from a mile away. That is why security contractors led by Colonel Johnson (Danny Glover) turn to him to find out how an assassin might kill the President with a near impossible shot from more than a mile away.
Though not exactly keen on helping a President he has deep philosophical differences with, Bob casually reads the 9/11 report and talks of disdain for wars over oil; just to give you an idea of his political bent, Swagger agrees to help out. It turns out to be a fateful decision. The asassination happens despite Bob's help and in fact because of it, the men he is working for are the actual assassins and Bob it seems is their patsy.
Now he must team up with a rookie FBI agent, babyfaced Michael Pena, to take down the shady conspiracy. To do so, they will have to kill a whole heck of alot of people.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, a master of style over substance filmmaking, Shooter has no real plot but rather plot hangers on which scenes of extreme violence are hung. On the bright side, much of that extreme violence is pretty cool looking. A siege on a farmhouse where Wahlberg and Pena kill some 20 or more nameless henchmen brings back fond goofball memories of Schwarzeneger's Commando and Stallone's Rambo.
Naturally, this being a throwback to action movies past there is eye candy in Shooter. Hot redhead Kate Mara, last seen in the underappreciated We Are Marshall, plays Wahlberg's love interest who by chance happens to spend much time in bondage wearing only a bra and jeans. And then there is smokin' babe Rhona Mitra, best known from TV's Nip/Tuck, who plays Pena's FBI partner who, though she keeps her clothes, models some lovely short skirts that I doubt are standard issue for an FBI agent.
Allegedly, when it comes to the action/thriller genre, we are supposed to accept plot holes and dumb luck that allow the lead character to escape certain capture or death. Shooter abuses the dumb luck in scenes so appallingly contrived that Jean Claude Van Damme would scoff. What luck that Swagger manages to steal a car that happens to have medical supplies in the truck right after he had been shot twice.
What luck that the one guy in the world without a television happens to be an expert in weapons who can help Swagger figure out who set him up. To ask for suspension of disbelief once or twice is cool, to keep asking over and over until all logic is abandoned in favor of utter contrivance is just too much.
Shooter compounds its goofball plot with a political perspective as ludicrous as any of the outsized action scenes in the film. Wahlberg's Bob Lee Swagger presents a pseudo-liberal political perspective that he defends with a gun. In a more self aware movie that could be played for ironic laughs, but Shooter is not a satire. The film wears a simplistic anti-war, anti-conservative perspective on its sleeve right down to showing Swagger casually reading the 9/11 report and chiding his enemies for their wars for oil.
Kudos to Mark Wahlberg and director Antoine Fuqua for wanting their film to be relevant but if they really want to get their point across; they need to do it in a smarter, more self aware movie. Shooter is a blood and guts, old school action picture. Attempting to shoehorn political commentary into the film only serves to make the politics seem as irrelevant as the film itself.
The most disappointing thing about Shooter is the thing that should have been its biggest strength. Star Mark Wahlberg. In one of the most unappealing performances of his career, Wahlberg mumbles his way through a charisma free performance. Handicapped by a script that gives him little more to do than shoot and grunt, Wahlberg brings very little life to this performance.
Mark Wahlberg is far too good an actor for such dopey material as Shooter. Brainless action crossed with mindless political cliche, Shooter feigns depth by appealing to a left wing mindset but insults that same left wing with its goofball liberalism defended with a big gun. It's true that Shooter has its heart in the right place; but when its purpose is so poorly expressed, the point is desperately missed.
Wahlberg will bounce back from this. Shooter may not launch him into the star territory of Tom Cruise, Will Smith or even Mel Gibson, but he's too talented not to make it there eventually. That is, if he can bypass idiot movies like Shooter.
