Pathetic... Simply Pathetic

Rating: 1/10 (25 March 2007)

*BEWARE OF SPOILERS* _ _ I had the misfortune to see this with my brother, and had to fight the overwhelming urge to just cut and run like the commanders did on Bob Lee in the beginning of this film... or like Mark's sense apparently did when he took the role. From horrible scripting to absurd situations and a gaggle of gratuitous explosions, this film tanked from the beginning. I was misled to think that this was a film setting of the book "The Shooter" but in fact, it wasn't, it so very much was not. The first thing I laughed at (that wasn't part of the AMAZING wit built into the script) was this amazingly pointless scene of at least 30 seconds of watching Marky Mark put on sunglasses and stroll away in slow motion from an equally pointless interchange with Danny Glover. Apparently Antoine Fuqua has a little fetish for the way Mr Wahlberg walks... Also, what is up with Danny Glovers mouth, it sounded like he had braces or throat cancer, or both, all he could manage was this whispering, cotton-mouthed mumbling, weird! But from there we get things like that the bad-guy fat-ass cop that is the first guy to run after and catch up to Gunny(jeeez!!), a veteran scout sniper , followed by scenes involving no less than 15 black helicopters swarming over Philadelphia, 2 obnoxious 'field medic' type scenes, a really super car chase, random nipple shots from one of the two 'babes', more bullets, techno-babble, and squibs than I can count, an evil Russian in a wheelchair, and then some more scenes with helicopters... the list goes on and on. All this culminates in about three different endings and a final scene with all the bad guys drinking cocktails and laughing evilly at the sheer magnitude of their malevolence... The story was shallow and aimless, the script was pitiful, the acting was sub-par (except Pena, kudos on not being as crappy) And worst of all, it took itself seriously. The only thing this movie was missing was Joe Don Baker, but, hey, at least we had Ned Beatty. As Nick Memphis so accurately put it 'This is Ridiculous!'