Directionless, without substance, story and soul

Rating: 4/10 (16 July 2007)

Shooter is the essence of a soulless movie bent on nothing more than pushing the horrific profession of a "sniper" onto the audience to illustrate just how incredible an assassin they make. You have an interesting plot line from the start, "two snipers caught in a domestic and international war with no rules", however the movie soon turns into a biased anti-government knockoff that is bent on showing conspiracies and crooked politicians.
Mark Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger, a ex-sniper special forces operative who just lost his friend/partner during a mission in Ethiopia. He retreats to the mountains and is approached by Danny Glover (Col. Issac Johnson) to tell them how a sniper could hit the President so they could stop a potential sniper they think is about to assassinate the president. Bob agrees, gets double-crossed, finds Pena (FBI agent Nick Memphis) tells him he's innocent and runs off ala John Rambo to seek revenge on those who wronged him.
The first five minutes are actually not bad, but then the movie goes downhill fast and when Michael Pena makes his first appearance. One must question what the director is thinking as Pena kicks the dirt in a rather poor attempt to be a "rookie, no-brains" FBI agent who later turns out to be an easily trained army commando.
The bottom line is Shooter was marred from the start. No real direction with the plot, no clear message, and a complete mis-use of some big name actors that have already proved they were excellent actors before starring in this sorry excuse for a movie. What is more interesting is what some new-comers to movies would think of these actors if Shooter was the first movie they saw, never realizing that's Ned Beatty from Deliverance, that's Danny Glover with one hell of a portfolio, and Mark Walhberg from The Departed and The Perfect Storm and last but definitely not least Michael Pena from Training Day. All of these actors have more talent than Shooter can provide and it's pathetic having to watch them squirm through the shallow plot line and cheesy dialog. I actually cringed when Ned Beatty shouts to Mark, "I'm a US Senator".
Shooter fails in more ways than one. The only thing it doesn't fail at is being somewhat of a no-brainer popcorn entertainment which is even debatable for me. In my humble opinion if you want a sniper movie with more intelligence, better dialog and solid plot, watch Sniper with Tom Berenger and Billy Zane.