Review by Peter Veugelaers ©2007
Don't be deceived - get out of cinema quick!

 The opening notes of music by Mark Mancina with the swooping camera draws you into Shooter. Focus on two American assassins in Ethiopia. Start the wooden dialogue which marks most of the movie. Assassin Bob Lee Swagger’s (Mark Wahlberg) best friend is gunned down by a helicopter in a raid by the locals against the U.S. military there. Why are they there? It’s U.S. interventionism “gone wrong”. Next you know Swagger’s in retirement begrudging the day his friend died.

  Enter Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) a few years later. He wants Swagger to protect the president from an eminent assassination attempt. The reluctant convert to the cause gets framed. Something’s amiss. Corruption in high places (we’ve seen this before). Swagger should be killed, but he survives, and treks across cities to avoid getting caught and spare time to get to the bottom of it, with a little help from an FBI agent (Michael Pena).

 Shooter’s more than action. It pretends to have brains: politics involving innocents in warfare, poverty, oil, hypocrites in government, and politicians with monetary ambitions (nothing rarefied here), this is about fairness and justice. Let’s not be discreet on such matters and it takes the moral high ground on them. It cannot be taken seriously politically and morally because no matter the persuasive power, it doesn’t ring true.

 Shooter can’t sustain the promise of the opening. Danny Glover’s low-key and croaky manner is unique at first but becomes tired. The middle gets bogged down for excruciatingly drawn out cat and mouse manaevours, which appear too easily constructed.

 Not my ideal action flick. But there’s a car chase at the start and explosions at the end. Some brief grisly shots of violence get thrown in. Think Mission Impossible III as the better movie which was surprisingly non-stop. But the technique of Shooter is fine and stylistic. Mark Wahlberg is very good in the raw. He does not compensate for a contrived action movie.