Shooter

April 7, 2007 - Mark Wahlberg takes aim at a right-wing conspiracy in this 2007 thriller. Kate Mara, Danny Glover, Ned Beatty, Michael Pena and Rade Serbedzija also star. Pena had a role in Crash and Serbedzija's role as "Gredenko" in season six of 24 cost him an arm (on the show).

In Shooter, Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger, a Marine sniper. When the movie opens, Swagger and his spotter are in Ethiopia. Their mission goes to hell and the spotter is killed. Swagger shoots down a chopper, and then it's three years later and Swagger is back in the US living in a mountain cabin with his dog.

That's where Danny Glover and his crew track him down. Glover says he's a Colonel who's gotten word of a plan to assassinate the president. He needs Swagger to help him foil the plot. Swagger is disillusioned but patriotic, so he agrees. He should have just said "No."

It turns out that Glover and his crew are private contractors with connections to a powerful senator (Beatty). Their real intent is to assassinate some Ethiopian Archbishop and make Swagger, who wasn't supposed to get out of Ethiopia alive three years ago, the fall guy.

The assassination takes place in Philadelphia and Swagger wasn't supposed to get out of there alive, either. But, he does, and goes on the run. With help from a rookie FBI agent (Pena) and the widow (Mara) of his Marine buddy, Swagger kills a lot of people, blows up a lot of stuff, and drives off into the sunset.

Overall Review: ** or ***, depending on how many questions you want to ask. For example, how does Swagger drive from Philadelphia to Kentucky in a vehicle that gets maybe 15 m.p.g.? Does he stop to buy gas? If so, how does he pay for it? He can't use credit cards because the FBI is trying to find him. Did he steal the gas? Did he have a lot of cash on him before he knew he was going to be running for his life? And, how did he get out of Ethiopia in the first place? The fewer questions like this that you ask, the more you will enjoy the movie's non-stop, scene-changing action.