Crap.

Rating: 2/10 (9 April 2007)

This whole movie was a pretty big waste. You might like it if you like "ill ass action" because he's a sniper and that explains it all. The screenplay was very lacking. The dialogue of the characters were too weak and not expressive enough, not even the acting was good. The acting that was closes to "good acting" was Michael Pena's (Nick Memphis). We could all tell that he was the nervous and tense type of person, but that should've been expressed in his performance in the battlefield more often, they did that a little which was okay. What about the main character? Bob Lee Swahger (actor Mark Wahlberg) was barely expressive of his character. His performance was rather poor. I know he could do better than this. We've all seen him as the annoying guy on The Departed, Wasn't his acting "decent" in that movie? But let's get more into the character Bob Lee Swahger. In the battlefield, he was very tense, (which is normal), at home he was a very quiet and bitchy carefree kind of guy, and later on, while he's at the climax, he suddenly cares for those people who were killed. I mean, does he suffer split personality disorder? (Note to Antoine Fuqua (director): next time, let us know if your character is going through a change, or a split personality disorder.) The director and the screenplay writer should give a more stable character. I mean he did kick some ass, but I'm assuming that the director used that as a cover-up for his character. We should come to like/hate the main character in the story, that's how well developed a character should be. Also Bob Lee Swahger was like a killer robot. Also Danny Glover's character (Antagonist Colonel Isaac Johnson) was very... Lacking. So was his acting. It was so cheesy. He was lacking so much emotion that the character should possess. The character, according to the screenplay, was lacking. Ned Beatty's (Senator Charles F. Meachum) role was the MOST lacking. His lines were so poorly directed, his "bad guy" character wasn't well proved ENOUGH. I can't get too much into the characters; let's get into the film making.
The film making was so poor. There was one scene in which the colonel was telling his bodyguards that Bob was their man, and right after that they showed a scene in which Swahger was sitting with his dog and the camera went out to a scenic view. I mean what was the point of that? That was a flaw in the editing and the directing. The director shouldn't throw something random and useless like that to viewers. When a car goes down a hill, going down the pathway would make it easy for the car to go. If the car were to run into this sudden stop in the path and just fall into the gap that would not be good. That was how that scenic scene was. The change of scene was so lacking. There was more into the film making, such as the cinematography of the battlefield in the beginning. They should've made better angles. They should've made an angle of the camera being right above the snipers to show exactly what they were seeing from their distance and to give the feeling of how they were feeling. The lighting of that scene was flawed also, it should've been gloomy to make us feel as they were feeling. Also the scene where the agent was kidnapped, and there were random sniper shootings, the angles should've remained where the agent was so we would've felt the same as he was.
Can't get completely into the film making, so let's get into the ending, the ending was just horrible, they ended with a car going down a road, that could've potentially been a symbolic ending but not for this movie. They should've ended it with a scene showing a wolf secretly hunting down its prey that would've been very symbolic.
Anyways, there is still much to say on the movie, I'm assuming that many will disagree with me and debate me on the topic. I'm open for debate.