Shooter

Free movie passes are both great and awful. I have a weird compulsion to see movies within the first day or two of their release. This helps me avoid spoilers, but mostly I'm just impatient about waiting to see a movie I'm excited about. But free passes aren't valid for the first week or so of a release, so when I get one I often don't use it until it's about to expire. Then I'm at the mercy of the least crappy option among movies that accept passes that I haven't seen. This is how I ended up seeing Shooter. Some spoilers follow, but not much more than appear in the trailers.

I really enjoyed some of the sniper sequences in Enemy at the Gates and Jarhead, so I wasn't entirely down on the concept, but the trailers made it look pretty goofy. And I wasn't disappointed. They hit a lot of cliches for these types of movies. Mark Wahlberg's best friend is killed when the government sends them on an off-the-books mission and leaves them for dead. There are some evil guys who use their political and military power to screw over the little guy and get rich in the process. Ned Beatty and Danny Glover do alright in these roles, but I kept expecting Glover to just say "I'm too old for this shit." The FBI plays the role of the non-evil government organization that's only pursuing our hero because he looks guilty. Michael Pena isn't bad as the sidekick/comic relief agent with the ridiculous action movie name (Nick Memphis). Just to make sure everyone knows we're watching a mindless action movie, they throw in excessive slow motion sequences (Marky Mark puts on a pair of sunglasses and walks in slow motion at one point for what seemed like 2 minutes), random explosions, and not much dialogue. And what dialogue Wahlberg's character had, he kind of mumbled, making a lot of it difficult to understand.

While I generally found the movie to be stupid, there were some highlights. Some of the action scenes were really well done. The opening sniper sequence was very cool. But for me the real highlight was Kate Mara. In addition to being the best part, Ms. Mara's appearance also falls under the category of goofy. Though the movie didn't have any nudity, probably 90% of her screen time was in some state of undress or another (the image to the left is typical, click for a larger version). Some of it pretty inexplicable. In one scene, she has to disguise herself, so naturally she dresses like some kind of prostitute. And I think we get the impression that she spent several days without putting a shirt on. While there's no good reason in the plot for any of these things to happen, I didn't mind one bit.

Looking at her imdb page, Kate Mara's actually been in a lot of stuff (24, We Are Marshall, Jack & Bobby), but I only remember her from a brief (but memorable) recurring role in the first season of Nip/Tuck. I thought she was pretty attractive then, but she's blossomed into a full-blown hottie since. I still have fond memories of the Nip/Tuck role with the equally lovely Sophia Bush, though, so I've included a clip (note: despite playing high schoolers, both actresses were in their 20s for this scene, so I'm not that big of a perv). I would suggest not viewing it at your workplace or anywhere else two cheerleaders making out and undressing would be considered inappropriate:

To not come off as completely superficial, I should comment on her acting. Um... her southern accent in Shooter wasn't the worst I've ever heard.

Since I spent half this review drooling over Kate Mara, it should be obvious that I don't have too much to say about the actual content of Shooter. I would recommend it to anyone who is a big a Kate Mara fan, or a big Mark Wahlberg fan (he has a few scenes of little clothing, too... you know, for the ladies), or someone who's distraught that they stopped making sequels to those Tom Berenger Sniper movies and will settle for this. Anyone else should skip it unless they're really bored.