Shooter There’s so much that’s wrong with Shooter that it’s hard to know where to even begin. Do you start with the abysmal acting? The cliches and conventions that the amateurish script latches onto with a death grip? The dialogue that is laugh-out-loud horrendous? So many flaws… so little time to eviscerate its putrid carcass. The plot of this movie is so negligible that it’s hardly worth even summing up, but here goes: Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg, The Departed) is a Marine-trained sniper who retreats into seclusion following a botched mission in which his partner/spotter is brutally gunned down and Swagger himself is left for dead. Living alone with his dog in the Wyoming woods (where Wahlberg’s long hair and pathetic excuse for a beard leave him looking like one of the GEICO cavemen), Swagger is approached by a government operative (Danny Glover, Dreamgirls) who informs him that the US is in need of the knowledge of a top sniper to help diffuse a potential assassination attempt against the president. To the surprise of exactly no one (with the exception of Swagger), it’s a setup and Swagger is framed and forced to go in the run in Hollywood’s 58,784th variation on The Fugitive. What Shooter basically amounts to is Tom Clancy for retards as there’s no investment in the dull and tedious story that drags on for an unbearable two hours, or in a script that shows no signs of doing anything but setting up stock characters that the audience couldn’t possibly care less about. Wrongly accused fugitive (Wahlberg)? Check. Shady government dude (Glover)? Check. Rookie FBI agent (Michael Pena, World Trade Center) who thinks that something just isn’t right and is inclined to believe the fugitive? Check. Fiancee of dead partner (Kate Mara, We Are Marshall) who’s the only person that the fugitive can trust? Check. The plot would actually be entirely predictable if it weren’t so unnecessarily jumbled. It jumps all over the place without any rhyme or reason (or cohesion, for that matter). Even the action sequences, which are obviously not set up at all by the script, are incredibly lame. Wahlberg, who’s been effective in films like The Departed and Boogie Nights when he isn’t forced to carry the story all by himself, is so bad in Shooter that he seems to be playing Dirk Diggler playing Brock Landers in the porno movie within the movie in Boogie Nights. And we all know how bad porn actors are. Well, not me… I don’t know… I mean, I’ve heard anyway… from friends. Where was I? Ah, yes… the “acting.” Besides Wahlberg’s ineptitude, Glover should really get to a doctor to have the slurred speech that he exhibited throughout the entire film checked out. He was either hitting the Jesus juice really hard (which would be understandable, given the fact that his agent gave him this script and told him it was a worthwhile job) or was suffering from some kind of stroke, but good God, man – have that looked at! And the dialogue… oh, Lord, the dialogue. Soooo bad. So very, very bad. The point in the script where the devious (sorry – stifling a laugh right now... and failing) operatives are trying to track down Swagger through his credit card usage, actually includes the line, “I managed to crack the FTD database!” Big shot government tecchie is creaming his shorts about cracking a fucking FLOWER SHOP’S database. Let that sink in for a minute. I nominate that one for Worst Line Of Dialogue Of 2007. Anyone second that? Antoine Fuqua, after showing competence as director of Training Day and Tears Of The Sun, falls off sharply with Shooter. His political statements are about as subtle as a jackhammer and he sets up one of the final scenes (Wahlberg’s hearing in front of the Attorney General) to disturbingly resemble the end of an episode of Scooby Doo. All of the principal characters are there and you half expect Glover to exclaim, “And I would have gotten away with this government conspiracy if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.” Look – if you enjoy being served a pile of cinematic shit then by all means add Shooter to your Netflix queue. Otherwise, you’d do best to avoid this garbage like the fucking plague.
Dirty Rating: 36/100
Other Opinions:
Shooter On Metacritic
Shooter On Rotten Tomatoes
Everyone's got opinions, so post yours below if you're so inclined.
No comments:
Post a Comment