Movie Review: Shooter

By Colin MacLean Mar 22, 2007, 11:41 GMT

 “Shooter” is an action-packed thriller starring Mark Wahlberg as Bob Lee Swagger, a former Army sniper who leaves the military after a mission goes bad. After he is reluctantly pressed back into service, Swagger is double-crossed again. With two bullets in him and the subject of a nationwide manhunt, Swagger begins his revenge, which will take down the most powerful people in the country. Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”) directs. ...more

The time is ripe for a film like ‘Shooter.’ 

Not since the 1950’s heyday of the red–baiting Senator McCarthy has there been so much paranoia and apprehension. Conspiracies are everywhere, terrorists are lurking behind every potted palm and we can’t even trust our own government.

With films like ‘The Good Shepherd’ and ‘Breach,’ we learn that we can’t even rely on the very institutions that are set up to protect us.

In this time of equivocation and complexity, where is Rambo when you need a little simple minded good vs. evil.

Well he’s back, except this time he’s called Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg). 

Swagger is an ex-Special Ops sharpshooter who is abandoned, with his spotter, in Ethiopia. The military just shuts down their operation leaving the two to face a convoy of hostile rebels alone.

Swagger survives but his faith is shattered. So he moves to the mountains to lick his wounds. 

Enter Colonel Issac Johnson (Richard Crenna oops, sorry, Danny Glover). The Colonel tells him that a shadowy group is planning to assassinate the president and he needs Bob Lee’s special talents to figure out where the shooter might hide.

Still holding onto some vestiges of patriotism, the reluctant sharpshooter agrees to help but finds himself framed for the act. Like The Fugitive, he’s on the run pursued by, well, most everyone in the known universe.

Only two people will help him, Sarah (Kate Mara) the girlfriend of his dead spotter and an inept FBI agent (Michael Pena) who blunders into a series of unexplained events surrounding the assassination.

From then on, like any good chase-conspiracy film, the plot gets too complex to explain but there are lots of explosions, car chases, role reversals, well-staged battles and an evil Senator.

Through it all strides Whalberg in a solid bid to move to the ranks of a A-list star. Noble, stoic, resourceful, courageous yet vulnerable, a principled warrior afloat in a sea of cynicism, he is as much a force of nature as Arnold or Sylvester ever were in their day. 

But a better actor. 

He’s up there with Jack Bauer – there are even two actors from 24 in the film - Kate Mara and Rade Serbedzija.

The film is directed at a breathless pace by Antoine Fuqua back in fine ‘Training Day’ form after his unfortunate detour in ‘King Arthur.’ Blithely unencumbered by a need for logic or dimensional characters, his film is part mystery and part thriller and he navigates both with a professional skill and ingenuity, maintaining suspense and keeping us guessing. 

If you want the full measure of enjoyment from this above average thriller, you must approach it with the knowledge of exactly what it is – a slick entertainment that trades on our post 9-11 fears. The logic here is movie logic and if you’re looking for anything else, this will be a long 1hr 20 minutes.

Swagger can do no wrong and is always in the right place at exactly the right time. If he sets a bomb in a big field, the platoon of bad guys are right there when it explodes – sailing spectacularly, and in slow motion, through the ensuing fireball. When the dreaded mercenaries attack, all of a sudden they can’t hit a Hummer with a rock from the back seat while Bob Lee never misses a shot.  And he recuperates from two bullet holes with enough speed to make Bauer himself envious.

But let’s not quibble, we’re not saving Private Ryan here. 

If you can make that leap, Shooter is an example of the great Hollywood machine doing what it does best – entertain us.