Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The latest collaboration from actor Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg, who brought the decent Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon and Patriots Day movies to the screen, finally land on an absolute dud with their fourth attempt.
Mile 22 isn’t a serious dramatic thriller about a real-life tragedy; it’s a souped-up action thriller about good guys, bad guys, fighting and guns. It might have been a cool movie if the filmmakers didn’t take this ridiculous material too seriously, but there’s absolutely no depth, substance or style here.
Wahlberg stars as James Silva, a black ops specialist who’s so smart he has to slap his wrist with a rubber band just to stop himself from being so smart all the time. His team consists of actors desperately trying to make the most out of only one characteristic, including ‘Angry Mum’ Alice (Lauren Cohan), ‘Trainer Enthusiast’ Bishop (John Malkovich), ‘Dessert Deliverer’ William (Carlo Alban) and ‘Dessert Recipient’ Sam (Ronda Rousey).
In the midst of their latest assignment in Southeast Asia, their informant Li Noor (Iko Uwais) shows up at the embassy with an ominous-sounding Ouroboros Drive.
The drive contains all the information Silva needs to track down some stolen Caesium, and save the world from those who would use it to make dirty bombs. Naturally, it’s not that simple and the drive will self-destruct in eight hours unless Silva and his off-the-books Overwatch team extract Li Noor from the country.
It’s 22 miles from their base to the airport, and everyone in the local government - and a couple of random cafe enthusiasts, just to be silly about it - are trying to kill them. The last half of Mile 22 is a non-stop action extravaganza in which people kill people, or get killed, or some combination of the two. Pretty straightforward, right?
The problem is Peter Berg has developed a signature style by now. It’s a choppy, macho, ‘you are here and you are constantly distracted by details’ approach that when done right, can amplify based-on-a-true stories like Lone Survivor and Patriots Day. But in a fictional, pulpy setting like Mile 22 it’s a distraction.
The screenplay paints this world with broad, impressionistic strokes but Berg brings it to life with something akin to photo-realism, and it falls apart under that kind of scrutiny.
Worst of all, the fast editing that gives Peter Berg’s dramatic scenes gravitas makes his action sequences hard to follow. Uwais is mostly wasted in Mile 22. The star of The Raid, The Raid 2 and Headshot is one of the most exciting martial arts performers in the contemporary action genre but he only gets a couple of moments to unleash his physical prowess. And, when he does, Berg uses so many edits that it robs the actor of his wow factor.
Uwais looks like he can do anything when you show him doing it in one take. When a director uses five cuts to show him pulling off just one move, it’s not nearly as exciting, impressive, or even believable.
Rousey makes the most out of her small role, and Cohan proves herself a capable action star despite her underwritten character. But the actor who suffers the most in Mile 22 is Wahlberg, who plays a hero who’s so haphazardly written that the other characters can’t agree on which mental disorder he suffers from.
He’s supposedly some kind of super-genius but his dialogue frequently consists of repeated words and phrases, which makes him sound like he escaped from an asylum. He also randomly quotes books that you can’t quite picture him ever reading, because he’s also the kind of guy who makes jokes in the middle of shootouts with bad guys who just murdered his friends.
Mile 22 is an energetic film but it’s too simplistic for this kind of heavy-handed treatment. The action stars look like they’re holding back, and the dramatic stars look like they’re trying to win a shouting match.
There sure is a lot of action going on here, however, and if you’re a diehard fan of the genre you might find something to latch onto. It’s just a shame that with a pedigree this impressive, the best Mile 22 can get is ‘you might find something to latch onto.’
Ultimately, Mile 22 is a straight-to-video action movie that got the big budget treatment … and not in a good, cheesy, fun way. It’s an undercooked story with characters who don’t know how to express themselves without yelling, and it’s full of laughable plot points.
Berg tries to hide the script’s deficiencies by treating the material like it’s Black Hawk Down but that serious approach only underscores how unfeasible the story really is. And, even that would have been OK if the action were cool, but it’s so sloppily cut together that it’s hard to be impressed by even the film’s most hard-core moments and brutal kills.
Sadly, the title proves sadly fitting for a film that feels close to a marathon endurance test. Run away.
VERDICT: One popcorn out of five – stay home
Showing in: Cineco, Saar, Seef II, Wadi Al Sail, Avenues
