Shooter is a 2007 conspiracy thriller directed by Antoine Fuqua based on the novel Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter. The film concerns a former United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper, Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg), who is framed for murder by a rogue secret private military company unit. The film was shot mainly in British Columbia, Canada. It was released in theatres on March 23, 2007 and for home viewing on June 26, 2007, topping the sales charts.
Plot
Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg), a retired Gunnery Sergeant Marine Scout Sniper, is one of the few snipers in the world whose sharpshooting abilities allow him to "take out a target from a mile away." He reluctantly leaves a self-imposed exile from his isolated mountain home at the request of Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover). Johnson appeals to his expertise and patriotism to help track down an assassin who plans on shooting the president from a great distance with a high powered rifle. Johnson gives him a list of three cities where the President is scheduled to visit so Swagger could determine if an attempt could be made at any of them.
Swagger assesses each of the locations and determines that a site in Philadelphia would be most conducive to a long range assassination attempt. He passes this information to Johnson, who purportedly arranges for a response. This turns out to be a set-up: while Swagger is working with Johnson's agents — including a local police officer — to find the rumored assassin, the Ethiopian archbishop is instead assassinated while standing next to the president. Swagger is shot by the officer, but manages to escape. The agents tell the police and public that Swagger is the shooter, and stage a massive manhunt for the injured sniper. However, Swagger has a stroke of luck — he meets a rookie FBI special agent, Nick Memphis (Michael Peña), disarms him and steals his car.
He uses the first aid supplies in the car to staunch his wounds and escape by driving into the Delaware River while being chased. He then takes refuge with Sarah Fenn (Kate Mara), widow of Swagger's late spotter and close friend Donnie Fenn, killed years before in a mission in Africa where Swagger himself barely survived. She saves his life by cleaning and stitching Swagger's gunshot wounds, and he later convinces her to help him contact Memphis with information on the conspiracy. Memphis is blamed for allowing Swagger's escape and is disciplined for negligence. He independently learns that Swagger may have been framed for the assassination by finding several inconsistencies in the evidence and witness statements provided to the FBI by an unnamed federal agency.
When the rogue agents realize their secret is compromised, they kidnap Memphis and attempt to stage his suicide. Swagger tails the agents and kills Memphis' captors with a scoped .22 rifle equipped with a homemade silencer. Swagger and Memphis then join forces and visit a firearms expert (Levon Helm) in Athens, Tennessee. Together they plot to capture who they think is the real assassin, an ex-sniper allied with Colonel Johnson. Once they find him in Lynchburg, Virginia, he commits suicide after revealing that the archbishop was actually the real target and he was murdered in order to prevent him from speaking out against U.S. involvement in the genocide of an Ethiopian village. The genocide was carried out on behalf of a consortium of American corporate oil interests headed by corrupt Senator Charles Meachum (Beatty); Swagger learns that the mission where Fenn was killed was also a part of the genocide as they were tasked to cover the withdrawal of the contractors assigned to the job. Swagger records the ex–sniper's confession of his involvement in the African genocide. Then, with Memphis's assistance, he escapes from an ambush by killing 24 mercenaries.
Meanwhile, other rogue mercenaries have kidnapped Sarah in order to lure Swagger out of hiding. With his new evidence and cat-and-mouse strategy, Swagger and Memphis are able to rescue her when Colonel Johnson and Senator Meachum arrange a meeting to exchange their hostage for the evidence of their wrongdoing. After killing several enemy snipers in an isolated mountain range and rescuing Sarah, Swagger and Memphis finally surrender to the FBI.
Later appearing in a closed meeting with the Director of the FBI and the United States Attorney General present, Swagger clears his name by loading a rifle round (supplied by Memphis) into his rifle (which is there as evidence since it was supposedly used in the killing), aiming it at the Colonel and pulling the trigger — which fails to fire the round. Swagger explains that every time he leaves his house, he takes out all the firing pins replacing them with slightly shorter ones, thus rendering them unable to fire until he returns. Although Swagger is exonerated, Colonel Johnson takes advantage of a legal loophole — the Ethiopian genocide is outside American legal jurisdiction — and walks free. The attorney general approaches Swagger and states that as a law enforcement official, he must abide by the law (he insinuates that if it was the "wild west" it would be appropriate to clean the system with a gun). Afterwards, the Colonel and the Senator plan their next move while at the Senator's vacation house — only to be interrupted by an attack by Swagger. He kills both conspirators, one of the Colonel's aides and two bodyguards, then breaks open a gas valve before leaving. The fire in the fireplace ignites the gas, blowing up the house. The final scene shows Swagger getting into a car with Sarah and driving away.
Cast
Mark Wahlberg at a London premiere for
Shooter.
Production
Sniper weapons and tactics
Shooter depicts a number of sniper tactics, thanks to the guidance of former U.S. Marine scout sniper Patrick Garrity, who trained Mark Wahlberg for the film. Garrity taught Wahlberg to shoot both left and right-handed (the actor is left-handed), as he had to switch shooting posture throughout the movie, due to Swagger's sustained injuries. He was also trained to adjust a weapon's scope, judge effects of wind to a shot, do rapid bolt manipulation and develop special breathing skills. His training included extreme distance shooting (up to 1,100 yards), and the use of camouflage ghillie suits. Fuqua appointed Garrity as the film's military technical advisor.[2]
In the special features of the DVD, Garrity is interviewed pointing out that the shot fired in the assassination would not have hit the archbishop straight on, as in the film. When a round is fired it will fall from 30–40 feet depending on the distance of the shot. To compensate, the round is fired at an arch calibrated by how far the round is going to fall, the distance of the shot, temperature, humidity, wind and the curvature of the earth. In reality, the shot taken on the archbishop would be coming almost straight down on top of his head. In his interview Garrity said "At 1,800 yards, The hydrostatic shock that follows a large caliber, high velocity round such as the 50. cal (which is used in the shot) the target would literally be peeled apart and limbs would be flying 200 metres away". The exit wound on the archbishop's head wound be so extreme it is too graphic for movie theatres, so instead, the movie depicts a much more suitable representation of the assassination.
Throughout the film, Swagger uses an array of sniper weapons, among which are the USMC M40A3 rifle[3] and Barrett M82[4] sniper rifles and Donnie Fenn used an M4 Carbine with a M203 grenade launcher and M68 Close Combat Optic in the African opening sequences, CheyTac Tactical M-200 Intervention in .408 CheyTac[5][6] used to shoot the Dinty Moore stew can, and Remington 700P in .308 Winchester (7.62x51mm NATO). Weapons used by Swagger include a Beretta M9 and a commandeered M4 Carbine with Aimpoint Sight, in the fight against the 24 mercenaries and a Colt M1911-A1 with a silenced M4 Carbine in the final shootout scene.
Also appearing in the film is a Precision Remotes Telepresent Rapid-Aiming Platform (TRAP), a remotely-operated weapon platform that accepts a standard rifle. Precision Remotes' website[7] appears in the film, and the company is credited in the closing credits.
Music
The score to the film was composed by Mark Mancina, who recorded the music at the Todd-AO Scoring Stage in Studio City, CA, using a 77–piece orchestra conducted by Don Harper.[8] A score soundtrack was released by Lakeshore Records on March 27, 2007. The song "Nasty Letter" by Otis Taylor plays over the end of the film and credits.
Reception
Critical response to the film was mixed. Rotten Tomatoes reports a 47% rating; Metacritic assigns 57, which indicates "mixed or average" and scored 7.5/10 from users based on 70 votes. Empire had a verdict of 'The sequel-ready Swagger challenges Bourne's supremacy with an impressive shoot-'em-up, work-it-out action drama.'
Some film critics, both liberal and conservative, saw the film as left-leaning in its politics, arguing that the main villain was a clear analogy for Dick Cheney.[9][10][11]
Home media
The DVD was released on June 26, 2007, reaching the top of the sales charts.[12]
See also
References
- ^ a b Shooter at Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2009-12-01.
- ^ "Shooter (2007) — Wahlberg Goes To Sniper School: About Training As A Shooter". Visualhollywood.com. http://www.visualhollywood.com/movies/shooter/about4.php.
- ^ Rogers, Troy. "UGO.COM - Patrick Garrity, Shooter Interview". Ugo. http://www.ugo.com/ugo/html/article/?id=16981. Retrieved 2009-07-17.
- ^ Winkelspecht, Dean (2007-07-31). "Blu-ray review of Shooter — DVDTOWN.com". DvdTown. http://www.dvdtown.com/reviews/shooter/4973. Retrieved 2009-07-17.
- ^ "MarkWahlberg.com - CheyTac M200 - Bob Lee's weapon of choice". MarkWahlberg.com. http://www.markwahlberg.com/viewtopic.php?t=12954&sid=6c164440efda8b36fffb1fde5cff2a3c.
- ^ "The Download Munkey (Archive): CheyTac M-200 in Shooter". The-download-munkey-blogspot.com. http://the-download-munkey.blogspot.com/2007/03/cheytac-m-200-in-shooter.html.
- ^ "Precision Remotes, Inc website". Precisionremotes.com. http://precisionremotes.com/.
- ^ Goldwasser, Dan (2007-03-15). "Mark Mancina scores Shooter". ScoringSessions.com. http://www.scoringsessions.com/news/105. Retrieved 2008-02-29.
Scoring Session Photo Gallery at ScoringSessions.com
- ^ Denby, David (April 2, 2007). "Men Gone Wild: "Shooter" and "300"". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2007/04/02/070402crci_cinema_denby.
- ^ Zengotita, Thomas de (April 9, 2007). "Must See Movie: Shooter". The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-de-zengotita/must-see-movie-shooter_b_45406.html.
- ^ Russell, Jamie (April 13, 2007). "Shooter (2007)". Movies. BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2007/04/09/shooter_2007_review.shtml.
- ^ Telsch, Rafe (2007-07-05). "DVD Sales: Shooter Knocks Out Competition". Cinemablend. http://www.cinemablend.com/dvdnews/DVD-Sales-Shooter-Knocks-Out-Competition-5070.html. Retrieved 2009-07-17.
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