Balanced and traditional, with some brilliant ideas

Rating: 8/10 (4 September 2007)

Based on novel just like the Bourne trilogy, Shooter deserves a nod for its own stylish sniping scenes and some brilliant ideas in a simple and direct action movie.
Recommended to action fans.I don't have to say much about the actions, for you can see by yourself. Actually if I didn't see Bourne Ultimatum before viewing Shooter, I would give Shooter a higher rating. However, through the very traditional car-chasing scene and ultra-typical hero-framing conspiracy,you can sense that, the director Fuqua must be a very modest person. The entire film is shot in a quite balanced way, and you can almost find nothing short in each part. The movie starts with main character Bob Lee, a second-to-none sniper who was once abandoned, now recruited to help stopping a president assassination. However he is framed.If you already knew the end just 20 minutes after the beginning, what is that to expect then? That's what the director wants to show us. You can predict that all the bad guys will get what they deserve, since the movie is so typical in the genre. However as the story went on, some twists really got me, for example, that the archbishop was shot instead of the president in the plot. And a few audiences with sharp eyes may notice it in the first place, but the majority will only find it out along with our hero. The characters are believable. Mark Wahlberg as Bob Lee seems a good soldier, yet not unstoppable like Jason Bourne but vulnerable and has his own weakness. In fact this movie is very reviewable for its brilliant lines and a very creepy(yet satisfying) Danny Glover only.
There are some moments I found out meaningless or stupid. For example the angry widow played by Kate Mera unnecessarily shot the bad guy to death, was overdone. Another one is the end. The evil senator and evil colonel sit together laughing about their successful plot in a remote house, ignoring the fact that their greatest threat Bob Lee is still alive and active and is most likely to kill them in such an environment. I mean, since they are both politically sophisticated, how could they have left Bob Lee alive despite that he already gave in once(destroy the evidence to the senator)? Apart from that, the movie is shot in detail and again, worth a nod.
8/10.