Shooter
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Writer: Robin Driscoll, Hamish McColl
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Michael Peña, Danny Glover, Kate Mara, Elias Koteas, Rhona Mitra, Rade Sherbedgia, Ned Beatty
Genre: Action/Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 120 mins
Seef Cineplex II at 11.30, 1400, 1630, 1800, 2130,
12.00 MN
Suspended over a deep gully of disbelief, where logic takes on more bullets than the bad guys, Shooter still makes the grade as hard action escapism.
Props to Mark Wahlberg, an actor whose fierce gaze and sneaky humour can carry a movie over the rockiest terrain.
Emotionally wounded by the death of his partner on a failed mission in Africa, Swagger takes off with his dog to a mountaintop ranch (strikingly shot in British Columbia). It’s a visit from retired Col Isaac Johnson (a glowering Danny Glover) that gets Swagger back in the game when the colonel plays the patriotism card.
There’s a plot to kill the president, and the colonel needs Swagger to predict how it will happen before it happens so he can stop it. In less time than it takes to say patsy, Swagger is on the run as the most hunted man in America.
Based on the 1993 novel Point of Impact, by Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter, who used Swagger in two other books, Shooter benefits from having Training Day director Antoine Fuqua to deflect plot deficiencies with firepower.
And the plucky cast is ready for every curve the film throws.
Still, it’s the villains played by Glover, Elias Koteas and Rade Sherbedgia who get the most out of the movie by diving off the deep end along with the script, by Jonathan Lemkin (Lethal Weapon 4).
Once this movie starts to take its paranoia seriously, the bogus gravity stalls the suspense and spoils the fun. The juice comes in scenes when Swagger goes ape-shit and no one can cool his blood lust.
Face it: Brawn trumps brains anytime when you’re looking for guy-movie nirvana.
— Peter Travers
