Shooter Movie Review

Shooter

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Michael Peña, Danny Glover, Kate Mara

Directed by: Antoine Fuqua

Rated R for strong graphic violence and some language.

124 min

Shooter was on my list of movies to see for quite awhile. Firstlee, because it is my kind of movie. I make no apologies for loving this kind of movie. I have said from the very beginning that I like kicking ass, revenge-type movies where there are big, sweaty men, preferably with guns, getting their revenge on and generally kicking badguy butt in big quantities. This was precisely what I knew Shooter was going to be, and I wasn’t disappointed. The secondly reason was because I wanted to consider Mark Wahlberg in the role of my Forever Hero, Jack Reacher, should the books about him ever be made into movies (oh pleeze, Kind Movie Gods, let it be so!).

A side note to any UK readers who want my eternal gratitude…if you were to get me the new Reacher book before it’s release date in the US, well I’d be forever in your debt. Why it comes out there THIS month and not here until NEXT month, well that is because someone in the publishing industry has a cruel sense of humor and likes to make people like me squirm with impotent rage and impatience.

K, done squirming. As a Reacher, I think Wahlberg would do well enough, except that he doesn’t quite meet the physical requirements. But since watching the 8 foot tall Xerxes in 300, I have realized that actors don’t have to be “6'5", 220-250 lbs., 50" chest” (heehee, stats from the page of Lee Child.…Oh my… my Reacher obsession took over again, I am sorry. I could be writing a letter to my elderly aunt and suddenly look down and see that the last four paragraphs are about Mr. Reacher, and somehow that happened when I began discussing her cat’s incontinence problems. Don’t ask how, the connection always appears somehow. But, anyway, I was talking about SHOOTER.

Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger, who used to be the greatest sniper dude around. He is a disenchanted US Army vet who left the service after the service left him- and his “spotter”- deep in enemy territory on a mission that wasn’t supposed to be missioning. Swagger got out, his spotter didn’t. Now he has become a hermit of sorts, living in a remote mountain cabin with his dog, who fetches beer, a prerequisite in being a hermit dog, I do believe.

His peaceful, if suspicious life is disrupted by the arrival of Glover, Colonel Isaac Johnson, who has come to drag Swagger out of his isolation so that he can save the president. (Glover talks like he has a mouthful of spit and/or gravel for the first half of the show, what was up with that?) Apparently, there are assassination plans underway and the only way to stop them is to beat them to it- how would Swagger do it? Twisting of the patriotic arm ensues, and reluctantly, Bob Lee starts figuring out how he would kill the president. Can you all see the big betrayal on its way? Yep, thought so. Bob Lee doesn’t see it, however, until he has been shot and is running for his life, accused of trying to kill the president, with no one to trust and no where to go.

Viewers get to see his survival skills in the urban jungle, and although someone if it a bit farfetched, it is all fun. Along the way, Bob Lee picks up some compadres, Nick Memphis, and FBI agent who sees that the pieces are not fitting as well as he was taught they should in the academy, and his spotter’s widow, the positively DARLING actress Mara, who is really “cute” until she smiles fully in one scene, and is transformed into breathtaking. I love actors/actresses who can change like that with one smile. Bodes well for their performances in the future. I think we will see her more often.

So the government naughty men are in for it- from a one man army, with his backup of two, and of course the movie water knows Bob Lee will more than match them. The government trained him to stay alive, after all, and he is going to do it, no matter how inconvenient it is to their evil plans. The plotline was actually a bit more complicated than I would normally expect in a movie of the genre, probably thanks to the fact that it was adapted from the novel "Point of Impact" by Stephen Hunter, a damn fine bookster. Moral of the story: The true American is not going to stand for no double-crossing from a lisping, secretly evil colonel, and that is how these kind of movies are supposed to be, right?

I give it 3 and ½ &s…

&… the plot was better than expected

&… even though parts were completely unrealistic, it is a fact I don’t go to movies for fact, but fiction, and as long as it’s entertaining fiction, it’s ok by me

&… Marky Mark is fleshing out nicely into an action type movie hero

½ &… big explosions, fights, guns, etc.