Military Business

Rating: 4/10 (6 May 2018)

The funny thing about movies like this is the suggestion that the US army being used to promote the business interests of American companies is one huge conspiracy, when in reality it is not. Actually, everything that is said in this film was said by General Smedly Bulter back in the 1930s when he outed the banking cartels' attempted coup against Franklin Delanore Rosevelt. Okay, I should probably suggest that there is still some innocence among a lot of people who believe that the United States is some benevolent world power, and comparatively speaking it is, but on the other hand it is basically as benevolent as was the British Empire.
So, in this film we have a sniper in the Marines who has been deployed in Ethiopia. After completing his mission, the government basically leaves him for dead, believing that he is good enough to pretty much extract himself, which he does. The film then jumps a number of years into the future where he is living by himself in a cabin in the mountains, when he is approached by the CIA to hire him to prevent the assassination of the president.
Well, things don't go down quite the way he expected, because he is set up. I guess this is the thing with being a soldier - it doesn't matter how good you are, you are still expendable. It seems that this is the case with soldiers throughout history. It seems that the powers that be simply do not care whether a soldier is good at his job or not because, well, in the end they are little more that trained killers, and trained killers are basically embarrassing, particularly for a country that holds itself out as a beacon of virtue.
Then again there is really nothing benign about business. Well, in a way there is, but in a way there isn't. I guess that is what the British Empire was all about - looking for ways to be able to secure trade routes and to build up its wealth. Then again, as Britain, and in turn the United States, has proven and that is that wealth doesn't come through military conquest, but rather through establishing trade. However, the catch is, is that there is honest trade, and there is gunboat diplomacy. The second is what the concerns that are raised in this film - companies want to make a profit, but they want to do it on the cheap, and if it is cheaper to slaughter a village full of farmers then so be it.
Yet as I suggested, there is nothing really new about this film. In a way it is just the same old same old. We have a soldier that is so good that he can take down a platoon of trained soldiers, is able to outwit all of the government agencies, and in the end, through some fluke, he manages to be found not guilty of attempting to kill the president, despite the fact that everybody was wanting to crucify him on the flimsiest evidence available. Okay, while it is fun, it still is just the same old same old.