Great popping and head-shots!

Rating: 8/10 (15 April 2007)

Don't mention about the trailer... Even I've never really seen it =P... but the movie is basically what the poster is showing you or trying to tell you. A shooter who shoots with marvellous marksmanship and shoots at an extreme distance which is considered impossible for many. The character Bob Lee Swagger, or Swagger for short is played by Mark Wahlberg, a highly skilled sharpshooter arduously trained by the United States Army. He was sent for (in this movie intro) a peacekeeping mission which turned awry and became a shoot-to-kill mission, in what appears to be a dramatic shooting event, after which they were left to battle out for their lives. His partner and best friend, Donnie Fenn (his spotter) was killed on that mission.
Despite having escaped from that dangerous escapade, he seek no revenge but lived out his life in a mountaineous region blanketed with trees with his dog, though he never will be able to forget the tragic incident which led him to retire prematurely. Hunting quickly became his only hobby and favorite pastime and not until 3 years later when the US Army sought his help back then again. This time, the Secret Service (apparently) went to him with a CMH medal to show their loyalty to king and country, to protect the country from enemies, foreign and domestic. The viewers are then introduced to a Colonel Isaac Johnson who earned that CMH (Congressional Medal of Honor - America's top award medal bestowed on those who went above and beyond their call of duty to save lives or show their loyalty to King and Country) for something in which he claimed that he did something silly. Swagger was persuaded to join in for a mission in which intel received and reported claimed that an expert sharpshooter was hired to take down the President of the United States (POTUS) during his welcoming speech in an event which took place in Philadelphia where the Archbishop Desmond Mutumbo (Dean McKenzie) was there to visit America and gave his speech. After some encouraging words and self-conscience instilled into Swagger by the Colonel as what all defenders of the country would do if they were him, he finally gave in and travelled to certain parts of America to sweep out potential given sites for the presidential speech which will be held (prior to this, they weren't sure which would be the favorited spot). What they wanted him to do was to sweep all the potential sites to see where would the sharpshooter most likely be if he were the killer. The "enemy" was suppsed to be the best and highly skilled brought in from another country for the assassination. What all seem to be like a well-versed mission, came something wrong when no actions were done by the Secret Service to pull out the assassin, instead they got a low-life fake cop to punch Swagger with 2 bullets from point blank. Falling to his great height from the stake out building, the story in this movie then starts on how he tried to salvage his own life through the streets of America; hunted severely not being able to go to a hospital.
With his time spent in the Army, it was clear that the skills he picked up along the way did him good, like what he mentioned in a line in the movie. First we were trained to kill people, and then we were trained to keep ourselves from not getting killed. He managed to survive through the ordeal after getting shot, in which many would have thought that he would have died from torrential bleeding. Recovering from the typical method of not being able to get himself hospitalized is quite normal nowadays for US Army and any other civilians alike in movies when they are being hunted especially. But the beauty is that you learn creative things and how to improvise the simplicity of things to be used as a medical aid. I did learn something interesting, but of course, applying it would be ridiculous. You watch for yourself =P Aside from the thin plot which raises few eyebrows, the way the movie was crafted to build up the suspension on the usage of sound and visual effects was superb. For counterstrikers, you would simply love this movie; needless for me to even start to involve people who are interested in headshots, guns, bombs, improvisation skills on home-made weapons and martial arts? For statisticians and strategy-lovers, Shooter has it all in a pack to appease your appetite for lots of killings, shootings, planning, strategizing and well, maybe a bit of a romance left intact.
This thriller/action movie may not be the best in comparison to the Die Hard's serials, but it's definitely more realistic in comparison to the Transporter 2 (I'm still 'awed' by the flying Audi that has the capability to do backflips and somersault to detach the electronic bomb planted below).