Shooter

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

Since the heyday of action stars like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Seagal, and Van Damme (all now long in the tooth), Hollywood has desperately been searching for their new Rambo, a guy with steely eyes and a straight shot who takes no prisoners. Clearly the producers of the action-filled but dumb Shooter think they have their man in Mark Wahlberg. Just check out the ultra-tough slo-mo shot of him wearing his shades and walking oh so coolly right into the camera's eye. Can we ask for more clichés? For starters, Wahlberg plays an exiled expert marksman named Bob Lee Swagger (no, we didn't make up the name) lured out of retirement to foil what he is told will be an assassination attempt on the president. When he is double-crossed by the evil, one-note villains led by Danny Glover as a retired colonel with a deep agenda, he retreats to his remote cabin and sets out to "get" those that wronged him. The trail leads to a U.S. senator (Ned Beatty) who is behind much of the deadly plot and a showdown on a snowy mountaintop. Wahlberg, so good in the recent The Departed, has all the moves you would expect for this sort of thing, but none of the humor that the best action guys possess. Where is Dirty Harry when you need him? Coming from director Antoine Fuqua, who did the much stronger, more complex Training Day, all this phony swagger just doesn't seem that compelling to watch. Sure there are lots of the obligatory chases and explosions, but at its heart, this Shooter just doesn't have the ammunition to make us care.

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