Shooter

Synopsis: Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) is an ex special forces sniper. Called upon by Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) to help foil an assassination attempt on the US President, he ends up being framed for the job and on the run.

Snipers are cool. That’s the immature kid in me speaking. Playing Ghost Recon on the Xbox, the sniper is the most fun. Sit back at a distance, pick your shot, then bang. It appeals to the ego as a power trip. Nobody can see you, but you’ve got the power of life and death over all you survey. Visually, a sniper is cool too. The ability to create tension in scene from a shot that rings out from nowhere is almost a gimme in a film. And when they emerge from cover, their camouflage revealed, it’s an arresting sight. So it goes without saying that Shooter looks good, has great moments of tension and appeals to the angry kid in all of us. It also has a plot which wants to say something. Unfortunately it’s that bit that brings it undone.

Your standard revenge fantasy is pretty much what this film is. Man done wrong by bad people, but he has a near superhuman ability to kill people, even from over a mile away. So unfortunately they messed with the wrong guy and now he’s gonna make them pay. But why did they do it? Well, coz they’re in it for the oil. The US government is corrupt and kills entire villages of people so they can put in oil pipelines in African countries. So they never meant to kill the President, just the Archbishop of Ethiopia because he was about to speak out about atrocities in his country. That he was standing next to the US President at the time makes it convenient to mistake it as an attempt on the President’s life.

Conspiracy theories are fine, but there’s something unpleasant about trying to marry real human tragedy (this sort of stuff has really happened in the past) to a revenge fantasy that involves a lot of gun porn. It’s just uncomfortable, because the action is well directed and really enjoyable, but its attempt to justify itself rather than acknowledge itself as an escapist action fantasy by situating itself in the realm of the real just doesn’t work. Shooter is a dishonest film that doesn’t deserve to be as much fun as it actually is.

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