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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Shooter

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#1 of 1 Posted 3/22/07 8:47 PM

From Harveycritic Posts 1637 Last Jan-30
To All [Msg # 22287.1 ]

    SHOOTER

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Paramount Pictures
Grade: B
Directed by:     Antoine Fuqua
Written By: Jonathan Lemkin, based on Stephen Hunter's novel "Point of Impact"
Cast:   Mark Wahlberg, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Danny Glover, Ned Beatty
Screened at: AMC Empire, NYC, 3/20/07
Opens: March 23, 2007

"Shooter" is touted by Publishers Weekly magazine, reviewing the novel on which it's based, as a
thinking man's "Rambo," which is at least half right. Well, maybe completely right, but that depends on
the I.Q. of the thinking man. Whereas the title character of "Rambo" shot up half of Asia, the title
character of Antoine Fuqua's latest pic, the appropriately named Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg),
shoots up a good deal of the population of North America. Among the principles that the thinking man of
a certain I.Q. will be willing to accept is that the Attorney General of the United States has the power to
pardon a fellow who has killed 50 or so agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, when you and I
would probably have shaken in our boots and surrendered if even one of them approached us with his
pen and pad drawn from his pocket protector. But "Shooter" is about car chases, explosions, and
chopper fire on the one hand, and how sinister operatives of the U.S. of A. are doing what the folks in
Teheran, Baghdad, Havana, Caracas, and Pyongyang have been saying they've been doing all along.
And what we're doing is apparently not spreading freedom and democracy, but rather laying waste to
villages in the interest of stabilizing areas for oil interests abroad, and plotting assassinations of high
officials here at home. Sounds paranoid? Yes indeedy. That's what sold movie tickets to Sydney
Pollack's 1975 venture "Three Days of the Condor" ("His CIA code name is Condor. In the next
seventy-two hours almost everyone he trusts will try to kill him"), and that's why "Shooter" should do just
fine at the box office during its first weekend here.

Antoine Fuqua is in his metier. Having shown us "King Arthur" in 2004, a gritty, un-Camelot, revisionist
look at a warrior betrayed by his sovereign, he now focuses on a warrior who is betrayed by some
fellows as high up in his own government as a sitting U.S. senator (played by Ned Beatty). Jonathan
Lemkin's screenplay, based on Stephen Hunter's novel "Points of Impact," slims down Hunter's high-
tech ballistics data, which would be daunting for those of us who are not members of the NRA (and that
probably includes the majority of us here in New York City). Lemkin also opens not in Vietnam, where
Swagger's sniper kills are legendary, but in Ethiopia, where the U.S. runs camps and where Swagger
has been maintaining Marine sniper operations against Ethiopian death squads. When his fellow sniper
is killed–by a U.S. military chopper unit and not by the enemy!–Swagger goes into retirement in the
mountains (filmed in beautiful British Columbia), betrayed by his own government, but is seduced back
into service by Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) and operative Jack Payne (Elias Koteas)..
Johnson, explaining that the FBI has received intelligence that there is a plot to assassinate the
president of the United States during one of his upcoming three speeches, asks Swagger to think like
the killer. How would he set up the kill? Which of the three cities would he choose? Where would he
hide? Little does Swagger realize, clever as he was, that he was being set up once again by his own
government for betrayal and frame-up as the very assassin, leading ultimately to his need to be on the
run. Only two people can be trusted. One is young FBI agent Nick Memphis (Michael Pena), whom he
disarms and who later spends day and night searching databases to prove to himself that Swagger is
innocent. The other is his sniper companion's ex-girlfriend, Sarah Fenn (Kara Mara), a Katie Holmes-
type who nurses him back to health after he is shot.

The movie is loaded with cliches but has several factors going for it. One is the aw-shucks strength of
its hero played by Mark Wahlberg, whose abs can match those of "300"'s Spartan superhero, King
Leonidas, played by Gerard Butler. He's easy to cheer. He's been betrayed–and who among us has not
been? He wants revenge, and don't we all? He's just a guy who for the most part depends on his
firepower to get over despite being greatly outnumbered, but in a pinch he can overcome his opponents,
as when he uses pure muscle to take down a vicious German Shepherd and two cops who demand his
I.D. (we have to have I.D. in Philadelphia now)? Michael Pena is also nicely cast as a decent fellow
nothing musclebound, though, just an ordinary guy being used who insists on working hard despite the
threat to his career, determined to find evidence to clear a man who, instinct tells, is innocent.

Peter Menzies has done a good job shooting in the gorgeous mountains of British Columbia, atop
Rainbow Glacier, near the resort town of Whistler. (Production notes state that getting there is
difficult–that choppers can take only five people at a time and that eighty people plus heavy equipment
had to be located atop the area.)

Ultimately, we have to suspend disbelief, as we do in any car-chase-chopper-blowup-mass-kill thriller. A
serial-revenge killer like Swagger, however justified his actions, cannot get away with his actions forever.
He must answer for what he has done in a court of law. He simply cannot ride into the sunset with a girl
like John-Wayne-end-of-story, but this type of thriller is not a Sundance special or Masterpiece Theater
work and no audience should expect it to be judged accordingly. The picture feeds into and reinforces
the long chain of cynicism present in America since at least the 1960's, is technically proficient and does
what it intends to do: it thrills with competent performances, fiery explosions, and breathtaking scenery.

Rated R.    129 minutes   2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Shooter

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