Shooter

Action

Mark Wahlberg	Bob Lee Swagger
Michael Pena	Nick Memphis
Danny Glover	Colonel Isaac Johnson
Kate Mara	Sarah Fenn
Elias Koteas	Jack Payne
Rhona Mitra	Alourdes Galindo
Jonathan Walker	Louis Dobbler
Justin Louis	Howard Purnell
Tate Donovan	Russ Turner
Rade Serbedzija	Michael Sandor
Michael Peña	Nick Memphis
Ned Beatty	Senator Charles F. Meachum
Rade Sherbedgia
Lane Garrison

Director	Antoine Fuqua
Producer	Lorenzo di Bonaventura; Erik Howsam; Ric Kidney
Writer	Jonathan Lemkin; Stephen Hunter
Cinematography	Peter Menzies Jr.
Musician	Mark Mancina
User Credit 1	Conrad Buff IV; Eric A. Sears
User Credit 2	Ha Nguyen

What would you do if you were framed for shooting a President? Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) turns to proving his innocence in the action packed film Shooter. The turn of events that occurs leaves this all-american former marine sniper left fighting for his life and the lives of all those ensnared. Events begin when Bob Lee Swagger is approached by retired Colonel Isaac Johnson ( Danny Glover), who tries to convince him in aiding to prevent the assassination of the president and saving his country. With much debate, still bitter from a betrayal long ago in his marine days, Swagger agrees and thus begins his spiraling journey. With yet another betrayal this time by Johnson, Swagger is left running from all forms of the law including a dark organization which wishes the secrets uncovered by Swagger to remain dead and buried. Fleeing and fighting at the same time, questioning and trusting no one, Swagger has but one friend and one mission, his sniper expertise and to bring down those who not only betrayed him but his country as well.

A movie that would not have been out of place in the run of paranoid-political thrillers of the 1970s, Shooter works an entertaining variation on the assassination picture. Mark Wahlberg, carrying over good mojo from The Departed, slides neatly into the character of Bob Lee Swagger, master marksman. Swagger has retreated from his duty as an off-the-books hired gun for the military, having become disillusioned with his government (switching on his TV at his remote mountain cabin, he mutters, "Let's see what kind of lies they're trying to sell us today."). Ah, but the government needs Swagger to scope out the location of a rumored attempt on the life of the president, so a shadowy government operative (Danny Glover) begs Swagger to use his sniper's skills to out-fox the assassin. From there--well, spoilers are not fair, since the movie has a few legitimate shocks and a very nice wrong-man scenario about to unfold.

A novel by the Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Stephen Hunter gives the movie a logical spine, even if the premise itself is the stuff of conspiracy theorists. Wahlberg gets support from Michael Pena, as a skeptical FBI agent; Kate Mara, as a trustworthy widow; and Ned Beatty, trailing along memories of Network, as a supremely cynical Senator. Along with the well-executed action sequences (the previously unreliable director Antoine Fuqua gets it in gear here), the movie includes a few potshots at the Bush administration. No, that doesn't put Shooter at the level of The Parallax View or All the President's Men, but it provides some tang along with the flying bullets. --Robert Horton