Shooter

Is it even fair any more to bring up Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch? I suppose not (he he). Seriously, there can no longer be any doubt that Mark Wahlberg, after a few poor choices like the Planet of the Apes remake, Three Kings and Rock Star, has the chops to carry a film on his shoulders and an ego reasonably enough sized to enjoy smaller roles in important movies like The Departed. He certainly elevates what might have been a run of the mill political thriller above the noise.

Shooter is the tale of Bob Lee Swagger, a man of simple tastes and an excellent marksman who might have made a career in the military until he was betrayed by intelligence operatives in Afghanistan and his spotter killed when the cover for their retreat was pulled out early. Instead he retires to an isolated self-sufficient existence high in the Rockies until, three years later, Col. Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) shows up with a request for his help, pushing all the right buttons.

Of course, Johnson and his masters–who are truly the ubiquitous “them” of consiparcy theorist nightmares–are setting our boy up to take a fall. The past connection revealed later on makes me dubious that Swagger would be chosen except that the conspiracists’ motives go even deeper then expected and Swagger isn’t supposed to survive the initial event. (All of this is shown in the trailers and commercials so I’m not giving any spoilers.)

Wahlberg really does make the movie by informing his acting with honest emotions well fit to the scene. The contrast for me is the far more highly regarded performances of Leonardo Dicaprio who I think believes that eye and eyebrow movement are important tools to be used as often as possible. Plus key tilting of the head.

Props also to director Antoine Fuqua, who gets back to the quality he had in The Replacement Killers and Training Day, and writer Jonathan Lemkin for focusing on the plot and not allowing superficial, extraneous action on to the screen (that is, the big bang explosions are pretty limited and neither Wahlberg nor his FBI pal show unbelievable martial arts skills). Fuqua uses locations especially effectively throughout, urban, rural, wilderness adding a layer beneath the action.

Michael Pena is the FBI pal, a special agent three weeks out of the academy who happens to be a couple of blocks from the Wahlberg when the assassination goes down and gets the blame big time when Bob Lee takes his car as the escape vehicle. Also turning in decent work are Glover, playing against type as a ruthless bad guy, and Rhona Mitra as another Special Agent willing to cut Pena some slack; there are also a couple of actors we recognized from 24: Rade Serbedgia, who plays Victor Gridenko on the current season and here is someone similarly co-opted years before for his killing skills, and Kate Mara from Day 5, the former girlfriend of Swagger’s dead Army pal.

recommended

PS: Shooter is based on a novel by Stephen Hunter and there are three or four more novels featuring Swagger, so I wonder if we’ll see sequels from them.