Shooter

Review by Clint Morris

It’s hard to say what kind of gun Mark Wahlberg would have. At times, he seems to like small things and then at other times, he’s seemingly got a woody for the big. One thing’s for sure, it’d have some kick – because that is the one thing Calvin’s former number one man insists on every time, size-aside.

If The Departed was the meaty main meal, then Shooter is dessert for Wahlberg – it’s creamy, sugary fluff that tastes damn good, but won’t repeat on you the next day. Unlike the Martin Scorsese stunner though, you won’t be going back for seconds.

First Blood meets Death Wish meets The Sentinel (yep, the recent Michael Douglas snorefest) in a film that gives new meaning to the oft-used cinematic term ‘no brainer’. In it, Academy Award Nominee (sounds strange to say that) Mark Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger, a marksman living in exile who is coaxed back into action by a couple of shady agents (one being Danny Glover) after learning of a plot to kill the president. Ultimately double-crossed and framed for the attempt, he goes on the run to track the real killer and find out who exactly set him up - and why. On his journey of retribution Swagger is assisted by his dead partner’s wife (Kate Mara) and the only fed (Michael Pena) who believes he’s innocent.

Shooter – as the cheesy B-action title implies – is essentially the modern-day incarnation of the late 80's vigilante flick. The type of high-testosterone nonsense that Chuck Norris; Arnold Schwarzenegger (this is particularly reminiscent of some of his earlier work – namely Commando (1986)) and Sylvester Stallone, as Rambo, served up season after season. It’s undoubtedly a lot pricier a movie than any of those films – and every cent is accounted for on screen – but for all intents and purposes it’s the same dog-eared template with a nice dust and polish.

That’s not a bad thing either. There’s definitely still a market for these kind of movies (after all, why would anyone have bankrolled next year’s Rambo IV if it were a tired genre?) and it’ll sell tickets like there’s no tomorrow. There is oodles of action; some marvellously staged sequences (some of the explosions at the end are quite amazing) and some ridiculous but fun good-guy/bad-guy one liners.

After The Departed though, many might have been expecting Wahlberg to be floating in some deeper waters – which this most certainly isn’t. The script for this thing is more join-the-dots than anything you would find in a kid’s activity book; the storyline is old hat, and the dialogue is just plain insipid.

The film’s director is Antoine Fuqua – the guy who knocked our socks off with the brilliant Training Day a few years back. After the recent King Arthur, and now this, it’s evidently clear that his first major success is mostly to the credit of its brilliant performances and divine script – because he’s not much of a director. He fares best when he’s handling action sequences, but really lets everyone down when he’s filming lengthy scenes of dialogue (talking of lengthy, the film is too damn long – it could have had half-an-hour trimmed from it and it would’ve worked just as well, if not better!).

If you’re not looking for a high-class cinema experience then Shooter will definitely massage your noggin with its unrelenting no-brainer bang... and you might even enjoy it a lot more than you think!

3 out of 5

300
Australian release: 19th April, 2007
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Rhona Mitra, Danny Glover
Director: Antoine Fuqua
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