Great novel, Disappointing Movie

Rating: 5/10 (27 March 2007)

I had read the novel that "The Shooter" was based upon, "Point of Impact" by Steven Hunter. It was an engrossing read and I could not put the book down until I finished it. The one thing that struck me was what a good film it would make. After seeing the film, I saw something very different from the source material. First, the events of the novel are brought up to present day as opposed to 1991 when the events of the first novel took place and the main character is marksman who was on a special mission in an African country protecting contract workers putting up a oil pipeline as opposed to Vietnam. Mark Wahlberg is a likable actor and perfect in any protagonist role he plays but may have been too young for the role and still has the East Coast/Boston thing going when the character was supposed to be a Southerner. Characters were missing, the drama and motivation is also missing in favor of action sequences of which Antoine Fuqua has made a specialty. One scene has an old gun expert virtually explaining out all of the narrative and background for what seems like 10 minutes to get around having the movie deal with it itself. The villains are not even despicable enough, they don't have enough screen time and we basically see characters getting roughed up by nameless thugs who are quickly dispatched in two minutes. The character of the FBI agent Nicholas Memphis was an important one in the book. He is a marksman also but haunted by a mistake that rendered his deceased wife paralyzed and is a clumsy agent who rediscovers his capabilities once more when he learns of inconsistencies and aids Bob Lee in clearing his name. All of this swept aside and Nick Memphis is merely a rookie agent fresh out of the academy and it doesn't help that Mike Pena doesn't even play up the comic relief potential of the character merely looking like he is constipated with something in his eye. This could have been a great action film but it chose to go with big explosions and bloody shootings with a younger cast at the expense of a compelling, suspenseful story with characters who were real and that you cared about. I know this is not a book review site but I had the same feeling after watching "Sum of All Fears" where they changed the nationality of the villains and made Jack Ryan young in the guise of Ben Affleck. I judged the film without taking into consideration the literary source and found the film to be rote, banal and underwhelming.