"I don't think you understand. These boys killed my dog."

Rating: 8/10 (15 November 2014)

Except for the idea that former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) and FBI detective Nick Memphis (Michael Pena) could blow up an elite team of twenty four assassins and go on to decimate a mountain cabin with a U.S. Senator (Ned Beatty), I thought this was a pretty effective thriller. The set up with the hiring of Swagger for his expertise in sniper tactics was convincingly done, and with the kind of skill required for such long distance marksmanship, it makes me wonder when a real life attack like the one depicted in the film might some day be attempted.
Say, keep an eye on Swagger after he's shot by Timmons (Alan C. Peterson). While on the run, he makes his way to some room off an alley, and when he closes the door behind him, all trace of the bullet hole and bloody wound on his upper right chest is suddenly gone. For a minute there I thought this was an X-Men movie with Wolverine in the lead.
You know what was really cool? Seeing Levon Helm in the role of the crusty, old firearms expert that Swagger and Memphis visit to learn about bullet rifling. I loved the way they wove a Kennedy assassination conspiracy into the story with Rate's (Helm) avowal that he still had the shovel that buried the three grassy knoll guys. The 'X-Files' also had a cool way of inserting the Kennedy assassination into the mythology of that show with the character of the Cigarette Smoking Man. Fifty years plus since that terrible event and writers are still toying with the assassination theories, I guess we'll just never know.
Well look, I know you have to leave reason and logic on hold while watching pictures like this, but there's no reason you can't have a good time with it. For me, it's all about looking for plot holes and goofs to see if the story stands up under careful scrutiny. Watching this flick, I kept a careful eye on Swagger as he made it a point to fulfill Nick Memphis' statement made early in the film - "In a conspiracy, all loose ends are trimmed".