ONE HARSH CRITIC: Shooter

Shooter: A Review

This week I feel like shutting off my brain. I've got family in town. I'm starting a new project tomorrow morning.  I've hit a creative lull, and don't know where to begin.

 

So I go to the movies in search of an escape - and I find Shooter. 

 

This feels like a movie of the week. The music smacks of the early 90's (picture Lorenzo Lama on his motorcycle - yeah that music). The dialogue is horrible, robbing dramatic scenes of all credibility. Throw in Stephen Segal or Jean Claude Van-Damme and you've got yourself a TNT Saturday matinee in the background as you fold laundry.

 

So the plot's weak, the story makes no sense and you can pick out the villain in the first five minutes, but does it really matter when you get to see Mark Wahlberg put a bullet in a man's eyeball from two miles away?  Of course not.  Heads explode left and right in this film, making it an unexpected gore fest - but it's one that got the audience cheering. 

 

Shooter is the story of Bobby Lee Swagger, an ex Special Forces sniper, who feels he was betrayed by his country.  I guess I would too if on a highly classified mission, my spotter was killed and I was left for dead by those who promised to protect me while I did their dirty work. 

 

After years of living alone with his dog in a desolate mountain cabin, the government returns in the form of Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover).  Pushing the patriotic buttons, he convinces Swagger to help stop a presidential assassination but has a darker agenda when he shows up at the sniper's door.  However, when he sets Swagger up for the assassination of an African dignitary, he isn't prepared for a war.

 

The rest of the film is Swagger hiding, shooting, blowing things up and getting closer and closer to his old spotter's wife, Sarah Fenn (Kate Mara).  She's the girl next door, but hot enough to keep an audience riveted through bad scenes. She's easily the best (looking) part of this $10.75. (http://www.katemarafan.com/) Somewhere along the way, Swagger forms a plan and ends the film in true MOW fashion - a finally shootout.

 

This movie is terrible. Wahlberg is as good as ever, but his cast just gives up all around him. Mara is fantastic, but I don't think I heard a word she said. She could have been reciting Faust. Glover's lisp is akin to a man who just had his wisdom teeth pulled, making eighty percent of his lines incomprehensible. Elias Koteas, who plays one of the government henchmen involved in the plan to set up Wahlberg, seemingly becomes schizophrenic as he goes from scene to scene playing completely different characters. Act one depicts him as a stone cold politician's aid, but by the midway point, he's laughing like a lunatic, and howling at the moon. There's no real progression towards this transformation, it just happens. 

 

But so what? This is a Hollywood action film. People explode.  Kate Mara is so hot, she's worth watching this train wreck all by herself. This movie is terrible. Nothing about it should be praised in any way. But, honestly, you should watch it anyway. Its just a good time. 

 

This is where you shut off your brain.

 

----------

Josh Gloer, Movie Correspondent

You can find Josh's column One Harsh Critic, published every Sunday night at http://oneharshcritic.gather.com.

You can keep up with Josh's postings and his Gather activity by joining his Gather network.  Just click here: http://filmmaker1997.gather.com/, and then select the orange "connect" button on the left hand side of the page. 

 

You can find Josh and other Movie Correspondents, celebrity content and connect with other movie buffs at Movies.Gather.com.