Shooter review

Shooter is a kinetic melodrama, long on action, short on credulity, which relies on Mark Wahlberg's steely edge to keep it from devolving into farce. Director Antoine Fuqua showed with Training Day that he is more interested in keeping things moving than keeping them real. A distillation of all the action adventure clichés, Shooter features an indestructible hero, car chases, shoot outs, explosions, political intrigue and, of course, a pretty girl. Fuqua should be admired for having the courage of his convictions. He unabashedly embraces the opportunity to go over the top and does so with gusto. But by throwing so many ingredients into the pot, the end result is just mush.

The central character, the tough acting, tough talking former Marine scout sniper Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg), is an enigmatic anti-hero who originated in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stephen Hunter's best-selling novel Point Of Impact. Described as a "thinking man's Rambo," Swagger is ripe to emulate his muscled predecessor by being wheeled out for a series of sequels. Here though, the overly convoluted circumstances and cartoonish characters he has to deal with detract from his debut appearance.

Possessed of a glossy, stylized cinematography, Shooter resembles more a commercial than a gritty thriller. One shot in particular of Swagger donning his dark shades and walking towards the camera is slowed down to a ridiculous degree to even further exaggerate his coolness. Anyone who, before single-handedly taking on the might of the FBI and the government, utters the line, "I'm going to tear their playhouse down," clearly doesn't need help from the cameraman.

When Swagger is abandoned by his commanding officers after completing a dangerous mission that took the life of his partner, he returns home and retreats to his remote cabin in the mountains. Three years later retired Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) shows up at his house and asks Swagger to lend his expertise to avert a planned assassination of the President. Swagger's patriotism supercedes his bitter sense of betrayal. He should have stayed home.

When he becomes the chief suspect in the assassination attempt, he finds himself elevated to public enemy number one and pursued by the FBI and every government agency. His only allies are a rookie FBI agent Nick Memphis (Michael Peña) and the young widow of his ex-partner (Kate Mara). The setting up of Swagger as the patsy, and the deep-rooted political corruption that lies behind the assassination attempt, draws overt parallels with JFK's murder. But Shooter's heavy-handed approach undermines any pretensions towards provoking considered thought on the topic of political conspiracy.

In the end Shooter's just brash, loud and and shiny. Which is presumably what Fuqua intended. But it does have the saving grace of Wahlberg, whose never one to get overwrought. Indeed at times his low-key approach makes him all but inaudible. "What the fuck's going on?" inquires an FBI agent at one point. With all the double-crossing going on, it's easy to understand his confusion. Truth is, it doesn't really matter.

Kevin Murphy