The standard liberal-action movie.

Rating: 6/10 (16 September 2007)

I was hoping more for this film. I shouldn't have, though, seeing as how Tears of the Sun and King Arthur were barely watchable.
With standard action fare but with less style than say, Swordfish, we get a thorough plate of stereotypical bad guys saying the same stereotypical lines we've all seen and heard. "I want it done 5 minutes ago!" "This is stuff a little above your pay grade," etc. Of course we have the evil fat white government men, the only helpful people at the FBI are trainees, and Wahlberg's character has no moral problem with mowing down dozens of America's boys (soldiers with no idea about the "conspiracy" and are just doing their duty apprehending a suspect).
Wahlberg makes no mistakes. Everything he does is used. In one scene he puts a dozen or so pipe bombs, even napalm bombs, around a house before infiltrating it to question one of the bad guys. Why does he do this? Well, because somehow he knows 40+ armed men will emerge from the woods outside within minutes to come after the same bad guy. I wonder- if they didn't attack at that precise moment, would Wahlberg have to go back and pick all those bombs back up? I mean, kids might find them, you know. He also somehow takes a picture of a VIN number with a camera phone from 8 feet away. (I guess after living in the woods for three years he was constantly on top of the latest cell phone technologies.) No character is interesting, worthwhile listening to (unless explaining more technical information about what's going on). The women do things like whimper and fall into the hands of the bad guys. And of course, everyone in the government is evil, except those who want vigilante justice.
I didn't hate watching the movie, but there were a lot of moments that just got between the logic part of my brain and the enjoyment part.