Danny's Weblog

Review -- Movie: Shooter (2007)

This is a generally competent thriller with Mark Wahlberg in the title role. As usual, my comments refer to numerous plot elements in detail, so if you haven't seen the movie yet STOP READING NOW.

SPOILER ALERT

1. There are many shortcomings and blunders in the movie, but it does one very significant thing: the bad guys are not "rogue" elements in the federal government, but clearly in control of it. In that respect it differs from all other similar movies that I am aware of.

On the other hand, one of the weak points in the plot is that the FBI is depicted as independent of the bad guys. This seems quite implausible to me, and it seems doubly implausible that the hero, who vows vengeance for being set up as a patsy by one branch of the Feds, should casually assume that the FBI would be anything different. At the very least, the hero should be much more cautious with them.

2. I watched the deleted scenes on the DVD, and I can certainly see why they were deleted. In many cases the hero waffles on ponderously to explain elements of the plot, and one wonders why this university lecturer type didn't put two and two together a long time ago.

Indeed, do special-forces types really get inserted in a country, kill some people, and get pulled out without ever wondering who they're killing and why? "Need to know" is certainly a very big phrase in government operations, but don't these guys ever go "hey, waitaminute" *before* their best buddy gets blown away and their exfiltration vanishes?

3. The lead character really progresses too fast. Assuming he starts off with no suspicion of how the Feds really work, he should have been much more tentative throughout the movie. Like the point about the FBI above, he should have spread his bets more. For instance, the bad guys *could* have been foreign agents of some kind, with only limited contacts in local uniformed and secret police.

But in general, he is depicted as having had previously no doubts about the Feds. Even by the end of the movie, he should have been still wondering whether he was completely nuts. It took me thirty years to get from supporting the US (when it was unfashionable) to opposing it.

4. Likewise, he recovers too fast from the shoulder wound. It is not easy to aim a rifle accurately, even when you are in perfect health. For *months* after a shoulder wound, especially if you get no physical therapy, you have weakness and tremors.

5. OK, I know you can buy gunpowder at a lot of supermarkets in the USA. But can you really put together radio-controlled booby traps? That work with complete reliability and effectiveness?

6. The hero's actions, while generally in the realm of the possible (unlike Die Hard, etc) generally rely on the bad guy doing one particular move. For instance, the hero waits in a gully, and knifes a patrolling guard when he leans down to take a look. The hero has to be in exactly the right stance to execute that move; if the bad guy has his gun ready when he looks in, the hero has "brought a knife to a gunfight" as the saying goes.

7. The assault on the assassin's house, which occupies a large part of the running time and presumably budget, was utterly ridiculous. It wasn't clear exactly what kind of troops made up the attacking force, but what kind of halfwit advances slowly towards the enemy in broad daylight without cover in tight groups? They were depicted as having no comms, no surveillance equipment, no snipers, no armored vehicles, no flash-bangs, gas, or respirators, no command and control... They would be lucky to get a 1:1 kill ratio against Somalis.

Furthermore, the hero's plan relies on the attacking force being exactly that stupid.

8. The FBI guy who becomes the hero's buddy also gets effective too fast. Now it's true that if a highly-trained guy sets up the incident for you, you can be very effective with minimal training. (Indeed that's how special forces work in general: each individual is not Rambo, but the entire team works together so that each individual is maximally effective.) But this guy apparently had not seen a man die before, and in real combat people fall apart under much less stress than this guy was under. And in the meantime he learns to calmly execute well-aimed shots under fire... not to mention a lot of special infantry tactics and vocabulary that I really, really doubt are stressed at Quantico.

9. After the assault on the assassin's house, the bad guys managed to clear away all the bodies – and all the other evidence like a crashed helicopter, presumably, but left the cartridge cases? Like they have a union or something?

10. The bad guys instantly get the hero's phone number from a call he makes to the FBI, but never noticed his calls to the FBI girl who is working with them. Hmm. I don't know if that makes much sense, but I'm pretty sure the hero shouldn't have relied on it.

11. It was really dumb of the hero not to figure that the bad guys would make the connection to his girl (ie his buddy's girl). They should have had some sort of plan, if only that she lies low instead of staying at her place.

12. It was a bad decision to give the Senator (the bad guy) a Southern accent. He was already a caricature, but that was going too far. Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to be a Yale type?

13. The whole scene towards the end where the hero demonstrates that his rifle, collected from the alleged assassination scene, is still in a state incapable of firing a round, was utterly ridiculous. No manager has ever behaved like the FBI director. No murder suspect would be allowed close to a weapon (unless it had been previously disabled... hmm).

The gambit rested totally on the bad guy stating confidently that the weapon had not been touched since the assassination, but even if he believed it, would that really prove anything? And are murder suspects really released, and allowed to accumulate weapons, without a lengthy public trial? And the hero allows himself and his friends to be captured (on the snowy mountain) saying that they would not survive if they ran, but what makes him think they would survive if they were caught? The FBI office scene certainly didn't convince me of it.

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