The Shooter

• Posted by Darling
• Category: Articles
• 

 

Hello again. How you doing? I feel like I’ve been away for ages, but it’s just been a few weeks, while I’ve been enjoying my new marital status as Mrs Weebl, which so far has been wicked fun. But now, the serious work. Mr Weebl has asked if I could do a weekly film review. Why not? So I decided to leg it down to the cinema, and see whatever was on first. This week, it was Shooter. So here we go.

I actually had no idea what Shooter was, I thought it might have been a brief history of the tequila slammer, but no. It’s an intense thriller starring Marky ‘Mark’ Wahlberg, who’s mum has finally let him out to see if he can carry a film all on his own, without an all star cast. The jury is still out on that point. Anyway, he plays Bob Lee Swagger (could they have given him a more masculine name? They might as well have called him Johnny Chest-hair. Or Steve Testosterone. Or Jack Sperm). Swagger is a former marine sniper who is disillusioned with the Government after an ‘incident’ involving his sniper spotter mate getting shot and killed. He goes to live in the mountains with his dog, who he kisses on the mouth incidentally, practising his shooting and reading about conspiracy theories. Which makes you think he should really have seen what was coming.

Inevitably, he gets drawn back in, this time by Danny Glover, who convinces him that someone is trying to shoot the president. Being an expert in sniper shit they need him to basically show them how to shoot him without actually doing it. And he does. And an Ethiopian envoy gets shot, and he gets blamed and goes on the run. Cue lots of running about, shooting stuff, and showing off his mad army skills, like making a makeshift drip out of what looks like a football pump needle, and using boot polish to create a beard that actually looks really convincing. He does look like an ex marine, he’s all pumped and shiny, but he never really looks tortured or bothered. He just always looks a bit angry, like he did back in his days on the Wildside with The Funky Bunch. KnowahI’msayinnnnn. Word.

Shooter is the first film I’ve ever seen that can swing between completely crap, to edge of the seat, to mind-boggling, and back to completely crap in a matter of minutes. There’s lots of male posturing, the under lying theme is that all governments are corrupt is obvious and a bit painful to watch. The action sequences do look all shiny and bangy, and the opening scenery is fantastic. But the ending is ridiculous, like the film didn’t know how to finish itself so it committed Hari-Kari. Unlike other ex-army man-goes-wild films, this has no sense of humour abut itself. Even Rambo and Commando feel a bit tongue in cheek, but Shooter feels like it thinks it’s worthy, when actually it’s all about jumping around and exploding stuff. It’s not all bad, but it’s not all good either. I would save your cash on this one and wait for it to be shown on TV.

On an interesting side note, have you ever been to the cinema completely on your own. I don’t mean without friends, I mean you’re the only one watching? It’s completely bizarre. I went at half twelve on a sunny Thursday afternoon, and had the whole place to myself. It was mental, I sat in three different seats to get a new angle, but had to sit at the back so no one could sneak up on me unawares. I think everyone should try it at least once. It’s liberating.