Crappy ending, but well presented

Rating: 7/10 (14 July 2009)

I just watched 4 movies in 2 days so excuse me if my brain is a little fragmented.
It's really hard to give this movie a number, because it has rattled between 5-8 in my head. So let's go with a 7. Every time I think it's a 5 because it's rather odd ending and lack of violent fight scenes, I just think of how well it presented itself.
So we got Mr. Swagger, a retired sniper. He's retired because his command left him and his partner to die (and his partner does) after a mission. 3 years pass and he's an isolated mountain-man complete with a loyal dog and a ponytail. A bit stereotypical but whatever, we'll roll with it.
So Danny Glover comes on the scene with a cracking voice that kind of tells me he's about to die any second. That said, he's an awesome actor... I just call it like I see it. Anyway it's rather obvious from the get-go, that his moral compass is so F'd up, it's amazing he finds his way to his car. (That's a line actually used in the movie, and it's so brilliant I'll be using it in the future). Danny's character wants Mark's character to plan a presidential assassination so they can actually PREVENT one. But the movie did a good job in making me NOT expect he was a double crossing asshole, but I had some hints. I wasn't expecting it, but I wasn't surprised, if that makes sense.
So. He get's double crossed, shot twice out of a building, and is framed for the murder of some African prince (who was 2 feet away from the president). So here comes the action, warts and all.
First, it actually gets SLOWER after he is shot. He goes through the entire middle of the movie running around bleeding and repairing himself... and eventually meets up with his dead partner's wife because, for some reason, he needs a second person to sow him up. Not sure why, plenty of action heroes patch themselves up and he was doing fine himself. But whatever, we need that OBLIGATORY love side-story. Once again, movies find themselves going a specific formulaic story and hope it works. And it doesn't, because they even go so far as having the woman CAPTURED and tormented for a while. Yea, totally didn't see that coming the second she let Swagger in her house. Sigh.
So that's pretty much the whole movie right there. Him running away. To be fair, he eventually does get all better, recruits a new sniper spotter (a pointless FBI agent, because they needed swagger to have more than a female ally, I guess), and does wreck some shop. But there's only, like, two good fight scenes that actually involve Swagger, doing... something.
Now this sounds pretty harsh for my 7/10, so let me get the redeeming quality out of the way before I drive the last spike through this movie's heart (Being the completely retarded ending).
It was a FINE movie. A good mindless conspiracy-action akin to Jason Bourne (Gods, I must have referenced the Bourne movies in my last 4 reviews, but it's hard not to) that simply spends too much time on the conspiracy and not the action. Doesn't hurt it too much, as it's got good actors with a fine script and the dialog fits every character (even if the rookie FBI guy was pointless).
However, the movie reminds us several times that this "conglomorate" cannot be defeated, and Swagger is just shooting at specters. This was a fine idea, showing us that not every enemy can be defeated. One of the enemies is a US Senator and killing him would be an instant-death-penalty or Life in Prison, as the characters imply throughout the finale. It tells us that the villains are practically unkillable. So what the FFFFF... is with the ending? Swagger storms a cabin full of the movie's villains bragging about how they won, and kills them all. The Senator's last words are "Are you out of your mind? I am a U-S Senator!", to which Swagger replies "exactly", and head-shots him. WHY? Sure, he bombs the cabin but if it's not perfectly obvious who was behind it, the people in the world of "Shooter" are complete F'ing morons.
I wouldn't have hated that so much if they just cut off that ridiculous ending. A better ending would be Swagger walking down a street, or walking back up to his home, and someone giving a final monologue about how the good guys don't always win. But no, this is America. Guns solve everything. Apparently.