Interesting set-up, technical skill, weak lead, unable to sustain itself

Rating: 6/10 (20 April 2007)

This movie is imaginative and touches on some interesting ideas. The film creates a picture of how much power and trust a government can have when there is a terrorist threat and what might happen if a well-connected, corrupt organization exploited them to frame an innocent person for a crime it commits. The brave, serious-minded, determined hero faces the impossible situation of having not only the criminals but the entire weight of law enforcement and the public against him. With some grit and technical skill, the movie shows interesting, smart, tough, resourceful ways in which he might try to survive and strike back, despite the staggering odds.
At the same time, the very imaginativeness of the movie made it hard to take seriously. This is why I was not bothered by the political cheap-shots others saw in the film. Consider the context. This is an action movie that fails to develop any serious themes, and if it is even trying to, it fumbles them so incompetently it discredits itself. And it is a shame if the film betrayed the book, but I was not offended because I did not even know there was a book.
But, purely on the level of entertainment value, stacking the odds so high against the hero, which creates the interesting set-up, also makes it very hard to explain how such a thing could have happened and how the hero could overcome it. It also raises expectations that the movie cannot or does not deliver on for how it will all be resolved. So the movie presents an interesting, well-executed set-up but lacks the depth or development to the characters and story to pull it off in the end.
The criminal organization -- superficially represented by a few colorful, stock characters -- is horribly ill-defined, as is any government role in it. The sometimes sinister-seeming actions or dialogue of FBI higher-ups and the frequent placement of the criminal masterminds in what look like government settings create the misleading impression that the villains are actually part of the FBI or another agency. If the movie is trying to imply that the criminals and the government are one and the same, then that is nothing more than a cheap gimmick because no attempt is made to credibly explain how they could be working together (a lone, grandiosely corrupt U.S. Senator from a relatively uninfluential wilderness state and an ex-Colonel are the only links?). The more details that are given, the more implausible the story becomes. The increasingly ineffective way the criminals behave during the movie takes a toll on the credibility of them having planned so masterful an initial crime.
As a result of unexplained motivations and unlikely events, an FBI agent ends up teaming with the hero. But the agent is played as a confusing, unlikeable drudge, right from his very first annoying moments on screen. At times, he acts like an eagle-eye, encyclopedic-brain professional, at others like a dunce. Which is it? How does the hero possibly have the time to whip him into shape as a reliable, lean, mean fighting machine?
The hero's ability to find out information and obtain resources while on the run are unbelievable. How, for example, does he know just when to show up in a boat with a high-powered rifle to foil an elaborate attempt to stage the suicide of the FBI agent (who has been investigating on his own and been abducted and beaten senseless by thugs)? The villains are careless in figuring out late the identity of the hero's other, first accomplice. The movie tries to explain this, and it could be excused as making the point that even the most technologically savvy, well-planned operations can still fall victim to simple human error. But less excusable is the failure of the hero (whose mind otherwise seems to work like a steel trap) to realize that his accomplice (who simply returns home after helping him) is in great danger. So at the expense of the hero's character, and of victimizing the accomplice, the movie has the hero do something stupid simply because they need it as a plot gimmick. Despite some attention to detail, the three supposedly climactic end scenes, including a stunt with a rifle to show his innocence in front of no less than the U.S. Attorney General himself, the destruction of critical, hard-won evidence for no good reason, and a crude, unimaginative final shootout scene, are a mess -- choppy, slow-paced, unexplained, implausible, contrived, and falling far short of a meaningful, dramatic resolution.
The supporting cast includes actors such as Danny Glover, Ned Beatty, and Michael Sandor, who at least bring some zest to undeveloped material. But Mark Wahlberg is weak as the lead. His portrayal is flat and inarticulate, never more so than with the supposedly pivotal line, "They killed my dog." His line about working for but hating the government is supposed to be meaningful but comes across as mere smart-aleck cynicism. He acts grim and close-mouthed but not passionately intense. He is serious but not charismatic. He lacks the confident authority, command, and seasoning that Steven Seagal brought to the Under Siege films. The actor playing Wahlberg's FBI partner seems as unimpressive and out-of-his-depth as his character.
So, while the movie has some interesting and entertaining elements, the characters and story skate by too much on the surface and come to too clumsy a conclusion to be satisfying.