Shooter (2007)
Shooter is a return to the kind of meat and potatoes action that was more fashionable in the 1980s. The film, true to its title, is content to blow people and squibs up in a number of ways. Yes, I said squibs. Blood actually squirts out of the wounds that are inflicted upon the various goons, henchmen and more goons that are at the disposal of Evil Republican (Ned Beatty) and Vague Evil Republican Military Colonel (Danny Glover). E.R. and V.E.R.M.C. recruit the Shooter, aka Bobby Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg, and yes, that character name was dreamed up by a Pulitzer Prize winning film critic) to do something that has something to do with preventing an assassination of the president by providing them with the perfect way to assassinate the president. Forgive Shooter. He’s been in the Middle East and hasn’t seen as many of these movies as we have.
But I’m losing sight of the true appeal of the film. Shooter, unlike the majority of clutter that gets passed off as action, is content to have people shoot at one another in a number of ways. This, by itself, is enough to qualify the film as a minor relief. Huge trucks don’t collide into one another in front of the Empire State building. There are no superheroes. No robots. No aliens. There are no attempts to dress Shooter up as something more legitimate with a handheld camera. The film is simply about a guy who shoots people in their heads, retires after a screw up (of course), and, upon being fucked over again, resumes shooting people in the heads. If Shooter had been made in 1985, it would have starred Schwarzenegger and had a now off putting swinging big dick, glad to be killing people again vibe going on. Shooter updates the formula (slightly), and casts those same big dicks as the villians. Swagger, true to the new politically correct man, is (slightly) more thoughtful and hesitant.
Shooter is fine for what it is. It’s a little sluggish and jargon heavy, and it could use a bit more Beatty and Glover, but it gets the job done as these things go. There is a climax involving snowbound sniping that’s pretty nifty. The film is also an important evolutionary step for star Mark Wahlberg, who is generally only as good as his material. He’s fine if the film is good or the part is juicy (Fear, Boogie Nights, I Heart Huckabees) but he’s usually on shakier ground in the bigger, boring paycheck pictures (Planet of the Apes, The Italian Job). Here he takes the paycheck and does a dutiful job of the connect the dots masculine performance, thus ensuring that the dogs will keep eating until Paul Thomas Anderson or David O. Russell come calling again.
*And, yes, I know that I never mentioned the shotgun, the girl, or the bra that happen to appear in the picture that I’ve chosen to headline the post. I would just relax and trust that that image does eventually appear in the film, and is thus fair game.
★★½
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Not a bad action movie at all if you don’t take it too seriously. If you wanted to be a hardass about it you could take it apart brick by illogical brick, but what’s the fun in that?
Walbergh was great and so was Pena.
Plus stuff blowed up real good.
It’s a good rainy Saturday afternoon rental.