*1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Harry Belafonte, Anthony Hopkins, William H. Macy, Martin Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Christian Slater, Shia LaBoeuf, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon, Joshua Jackson, Freddy Rodriguez and Helen Hunt
Directed & written by Emilio Estevez
2006
116 min R
Not as good as “JFK.”
I call bollocks on this movie. Well-meaning bollocks perhaps, but still bollocks. Yes, maybe I come from a generation in which the death of a president is the same as any other person getting shot on TV. But still. In the hotel on the night RFK met his maker, people stand around and talk and DEAR GOD how they do nothing but exposit. It’s this year’s “Crash.”
Director Estevez isn’t half-bad when it comes to handling space, but his script is nothing but speechifying, monologues, dramatic showdowns, syrupy nobility, “moments,” and resolutions without motivation. Couples of various sorts are introduced, paired off, given their conflicts, then given resolutions. Labored, contrived, obvious – even if the movie’s message about “what might have been” is usually something I like. Not offensive, just dull. Granted, I was doing something else at the same time I watched it. But still.
Finished May 13th, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Friday & Saturday Night
**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Michael Pena, Danny Glover, Elias Koteas, Kate Mara, and Ned Beatty.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua & written by Jonathan Lemkin, from the novel by Stephen Hunter
2007
124 min R
“Shooter” is a perfectly serviceable git-‘er-done action flick, with Marky Mark playing so serious and deadpan that he loops around and becomes comical. Marky Mark’s traumatized sniper ex-Marine is framed for an assassination plot. A cross-country flight rife with explosions, dead bodies, and Let The Girl Go This Has Nothing to Do With Her ensues.
Fun scenery-chewing villainy is provided by the aforementioned Danny Glover, Elias Koteas, and Ned Beatty, who all but says “pass me another poor person to wipe my mouth with.” As they are corporate-toadying massacre-the-villagers-for-the-oil types, and as the hero is all guns and revenge, some critics have mistaken “Shooter” for being a namby-pamby pinko liberal message movie that uses bloody-minded Jesse Helms fascism to reach its ends.
But, as we cross the farms, militia bases, and truck commercial settings of Kentucky and Montana there isn’t a liberal in sight. “Shooter” is more about a white Southern base that feels betrayed by corrupt leadership. The means of napalm and head-shots are not questioned, simply the fraudulent use to which they have been put.
Overall, “Shooter” isn’t bad and I wouldn’t turn it off if I caught it on TV. As Marky Mark’s reluctant FBI sidekick, Michael Pena does a great shrug when confronted by angry superiors. I like that Pena’s one friend in the bureau wears less and less each time we see her. Also, there’s a Movie President, and I always love how they manage to look simultaneously Nondescript and Presidential. I remember how one of the Spy Kids fell in love with a girl that he never bothered to stop referring to as “President’s Daughter.”