Movie Review - Shooter

Pretty Damned Good.

Shooter is a suspense/thriller that came out early this year and did fairly well at the box office. It made almost $47,000,000 in the US, but the budget was an estimated $61m. So the international releases and DVD sales will have to make up a bit.

Running time is 124 minutes, pretty much all suspense-filled.

The rundown. Marky Mark is no longer with the Funky Bunch unless you've smelled a United States Marine sniper in the Ethiopian desert. Basically, he's the best, but his partner/spotter/friend is killed as they are supporting the escape of some U.S. forces from hostile forces.

Jump ahead 3 years and he's holed up in a cabin in the mountains with his hunting dog and gets a visit from Danny Glover (not as Sgt. Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon). They tell him there's a plot to assassinate the president and they want him to scope out the three potential locations it could happen, and give them advice on where a sniper would shoot from. Duty and Honor, he agrees. The President is not shot, but an Ethiopian Bishop IS. The government guys frame him for the murder and he has to go on the run to find out how wide this conspiracy goes to clear his name, while falling in love with his dead partner's widow, dealing with Elias Koteas (from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and Ned Beatty (Superman, Deliverance) who I did not know was still alive.

Along the way he gets the help of a rookie FBI agent who is the only one smart enough to notice a lot of things don't make sense without a conspiracy of massive proportions. The actor is named Michael Pena, but he reminds me too much of M. Night Shyamalan.

The ladies might not like the plot, but they can drool over Wahlberg. For the guys there's lots of shooting, explosions, revenge, and one girl wearing just a bra.