Review: Shooter -- Scott's Review

Swiftly and aggressively entertaining at its best moments, thoroughly (aggressively) boring at its worst, the new action flick Shooter feels like it fell right out of the 1980s. Jettison the handful of offhand references to current events (like 9/11 and other violent incursions) and you're looking at a screenplay that Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis would have climbed all over. When director Antoine Fuqua keeps his lenses focused firmly on the action, Shooter is quite a bit of tough, gritty fun. It's just that all the endless story deviations and lethargic plot contortions start to grate on the nerves after a little while.

Based on the novel Point of Impact (by Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Stephen Hunter), Shooter is a blend of The Fugitive and In the Line of Fire -- with one amusingly outrageous portion of Cliffhanger thrown in because, hey, blood looks really cool when it's splattered all over virgin snow. Our hero is Bob Lee Swagger (as played by Mark Wahlberg and yes I said Swagger), the undisputed world's champ when it comes to killing enemies by way of military sniper rifle. Think you've got mad Halo skills when you find that sniper gun? Please. Bob Lee Swagger can hit a tin can from over a mile away -- and pet his dog at the same time. So when a shadowy government man (Danny Glover) shows up at Swagger's isolated cabin with his evil henchman (Elias Koteas) in tow, you'd think Bob Lee would know better than to accept their proposal -- to "fake" a presidential assassination in order to help "prevent" a presidential assassination -- but he doesn't.

Swagger ends up in Philadelphia, more than prepared to deliver a world class lesson on how to (hypothetically) kill the president. But wouldn't you know it? The whole scheme is a scam, a real politician is truly assassinated, and who's the one suddenly on the run? Yep, Swagger time, baby, and this time it's not about honor. It's about justice. (Well, lots of justice and about 45 combined minutes of wheel-spinning and half-baked story-padding.) See, Swagger can't just jump right into Revenge Mode without driving from Philly to Kentucky so he can meet his dead buddy's widow (Kate Mara), who promptly takes the gore-drenched alleged murderer into her house so she can dress his bullet holes and nurse him back to health. Once in a while we'll switch over to a vague and poorly-edited B-story in which a disgraced young FBI agent (Michael Pena) "goes rogue" in an effort to prove Swagger's innocence. Plus there's a whole lot of random mustache-twirling on the part of Shadowy Government Man, Evil Henchman, and Mega-Evil Senator, as played by Ned Beatty. Yep, Ned Beatty is back!

Mark Wahlberg seems to be having a good time playing a soft-spoken ultra-killer. His early scenes even exhibit a welcome sense of humor where his gruffly one-note character is concerned. But he also has this irritating habit of rushing his dialog out in hushed and hurried mumbles. I think I only absorbed maybe two-thirds of his vocal output. As Shadowy Government Man, Danny Glover gets to play "stunningly evil," and he does so with palpable enthusiasm ... although I don't remember the guy ever having a lisp before. Weird. If odd ensembles are your thing, Shooter will look like a cinematic salad bar to you.

Lovely redhead Mara gets the thankless role of nursemaid-turned-hostage/punching bag, but she and colorful character actor Elias Koteas do have a nice exchange near Act III, even if the sloppy editing renders this subplot half-baked, at best. As the failed yet plucky FBI agent, Michael Pena does fine work with a really strange role. Familiar folks like Rhona Mitra, Tate Donovan and Rade Serbedzija casually populate the background without making too much noise -- as if they realize their roles are superfluous and don't want to hit the cutting room floor -- and I do believe I've already mentioned the return of Ned Beatty. Little-seen since the mid-'90s, the great guy digs into his Evil Senator role with both fists and comes up sneering. Honestly I'd have paid the six bucks just to see Beatty back in action. I'm weird that way.

The movie's both refreshingly mean-spirited and annoyingly meandering at the same time. Plot holes run rampant through most of Act II and there's way too much topical-yet-facile "speechifying" in general. But that's if you focus on the patently familiar story that Shooter has to offer. Concentrate mainly on the mayhem, the gunplay and the impressively florid explosions, and the flick seems more than worthy of a $6.00 matinee. Frankly I can't figure out why filmmakers who already have a perfectly serviceable 89-minute bullet-fest feel they must inflate the thing into an 121-minute speech-laden affair that, really, doesn't even need all the unconvincing character development, half-baked political statements, and redundant logjams of plot. As it stands, Shooter is a perfectly watchable time-killer that delivers on its promises but also kind of wears out its welcome.