Shooter
I've read a few of Stephen Hunter's novels, but I'm not familiar with his Bob Lee Swagger series, Point of Impact being the first and the one upon which Shooter is based. I am, however, familiar with his excellent, Pulitzer Prize-winning film criticism for The Washington Post, and I know that his working knowledge of the movie business has made him reluctant to have any of his novels adapted to film.
His faith has been rewarded.
Riddled with clichés and paint-by-numbers plot turns, Shooter represents everything bad about action movies and conspiracy theories all rolled into one. There is absolutely nothing in this film that you haven't seen done better somewhere else. With all the names involved in this project, you'd think something better than a Steven Seagal movie would come out of it. Director Antoine Fuqua has done little since to fulfill the potential shown by Training Day. Mark Wahlberg, as usual, stinks as a leading man, muttering and grumbling through his role as a disillusioned marksman as though he was trying to stop all of his teeth from falling out. Some of his dialogue is unintelligible, while the rest is simply unintelligent. His female counterpart, Kate Mara (granddaughter of the late New York Giants owner Wellington Mara), is a nice find; but looking at her is about the only benefit to watching this drab, predictable film. Shooter is dumb Hollywood all around, and a good example of why Hunter should stick to critiquing films instead of allowing his novels to be made into them.
- July 30, 2008
DVD Extras
There is one decent bit of bonus material here which basically amounts to a short commercial for the Philadelphia visitors bureau and Independence Park, where the assassination takes place in the movie. Otherwise, there are seven dumb deleted scenes and a "making of" featurette I couldn't have cared less about.