a satire of poor Hollywood thriller clichés :D

Rating: 5/10 (10 January 2012)

Although entertaining and stresses political themes of "paranoid" government conspiracy, corruption, and abuse, the film fails as being a legitimate thriller not because it is improbable (it is a movie, after all), but because the basis of the plot centers on one of the biggest plot-hole clichés of thrillers: an illogical, credulous mass vs. a suspicious few or one.
==WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!== In this case, the credulous mass is the FBI and the aware single man is Special Agent Nick Memphis. Even when Memphis is informing his superiors of holes in the investigation against Swagger, he is told off as being tired, misunderstood, even "crazy":
* Being suspended from field duty, Memphis is working on the FBI tip line and receives information that a man whom appeared to be (and was) Swagger came into a convenience store and asked for materials that could be used to make an IV. Memphis was told off when one of the items Swagger bought was sugar, even though Memphis told him it has been used for centuries to treat injuries.
Sure, this was only circumstantial, but in great contrast, the evidence and facts that Memphis compiles and shows to his superior afterwards was too plausible to ignore and dismiss even the slightest bit suspicion.
In this scene, Agent Galindo goes into a conference room and finds an exhausted Memphis pouring over reports, documents, and photographs. These was amongst Memphis's findings (out of order) which Galindo ignored.
FINDING TWO: Witness report inconsistent with general sniper MO The responding officer (part of the conspiracy) claimed that he saw a rifle barrel sticking out of the window of the sniper's nest which called him to investigate. Military snipers never would do that for it greatly risks revealing there position, and an elite sniper like Swagger would know that.
FINDING THREE: Investigation advances way too fast Less than 30 minutes after the rifle shot was fired, the first ballistic and forensic reports started to come in, even when the feds and secret service were just "closing the perimeter" and "scrambling" helicopters. Galindo dismisses it as the result of efficient cooperation between federal law enforcement agencies, but Memphis says (which is humorously true) "Were the federal government, were not THAT good."
FINDING FOUR (Really?!): Facts of marksmanship That fact that this doesn't even raise the slightest bit of suspicion in Galindo is ridiculous and laughable.
Accordingly, how the FBI (and what the conspirators wanted) saw it was Swagger was trying to assassinate the US President but he "missed" and hit the Archbishop of Ethiopia instead. Memphis points out the holes
First things first, because there was no wind at the time the shot was taken (video footage confirmed this as the flag behind the president was still at the moment), it was unlikely that environmental factors could have affected the shot.
Second,Memphis indicates that the idea of Swagger "missing" the President was highly inconsistent with Swagger's record.
Using Swagger's results from a prior USMC shooting competition he took part, Memphis showed that he had successfully placed 5 shots dead-center in a one inch spread while shooting from a thousand yards away. Yet Swagger, when "he" made the shot from 2,000 yards away, he "missed" and hit the Archbishop, TWO FEET away?
If situation happened in real life, it is highly unlikely that