Review of “Shooter”
The novel Point of Impact by Pulitzer Prize winning film critic Steven Hunter is the kind you pick up at the airport and leave on the plane when you’re finished. The film version Shooter is in the same category – a good adventure yarn with few pauses for breath, mixing conspiracy theory, high-action shootouts and plenty of exploding orange fireballs for both cynical good guys and smarmy bad guys to deal with.
Mark Wahlberg fills the combat boots left warm by Willis, Stallone and Schwatchnegger as the man of action who refuses to give up or die despite being shot, blown up, betrayed and surrounded. Wahlberg is Bob Lee Swagger, a US Army marksman who is left for dead on a mission in Africa. Three years later he’s retired and living alone in the snow capped mountains of Wyoming with a bad haircut and a permanent sneer. His only companions are a faithful hound and his collection of high-powered rifles, capable of killing any man – even perhaps the President – from a mile away.
When Swagger is visited by Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) to take on another mission for the FBI, his first instinct is to say no. But Johnson is persuasive enough, tempting Swagger back to the unprincipled world of politics and power where his soldier’s skills are needed but his soldier’s sense of honour and justice are a liability. Swagger soon becomes the unwanted man, embarrassing too many people who have too much to lose.
Director Antoine Fuqua, who made the popular Training Day and the not so successful King Arthur has a return to form, never letting this slick action thriller lose its pace or intensity while allowing a glimmer of warmth to emerge from the bruised and dead-pan character of Swagger . Wahlberg, nominated for an Oscar in Scorsese’s The Departed, isn’t given as much to work with here, but makes a credible all action hero, grimacing through the many pain barriers put up on his quest for justice. He is brilliantly supported by Michael Pena, who plays the rookie FBI agent and side kick, a character with a little more depth than many of the others in the film – particular the bad guys, who become increasingly like laughing, power-hungry maniacs as the plot unravels. It’s well made, full of smart energy (and a few barbs aimed at the Bush administration) and is a respectable addition to the shoot-em up conspiracy action genre.
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