Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2982 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-08-13
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 125 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Synopsis
Antoine Fuqua (director of TRAINING DAY and THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS) takes on government conspiracies in action/thriller SHOOTER. The film centres on Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg), a former scout sniper who--following a botched operation in Ethiopia--has retired from the marines and become a recluse. Three years later, Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) shows up with two flunkies, trying to convince Swagger to help them thwart a plot to assassinate the president. Honour and duty get the better of him, and Swagger agrees to participate, unaware that he’s being set up. Now, with the whole world after him, the only people he can trust are the widow of his former partner, Sarah (Kate Mara), and Nick Memphis (Michael Pena), a young FBI agent who refuses to give up investigating the case.
Wahlberg, hot on the heels of his Oscar nominated turn in THE DEPARTED, delivers yet another credible performance as a complicated man who had turned his back on society, only to be thrust right back into the middle of it. Glover is solid as his arch-nemesis, a sadistic character who treats the situation as if it were some kind of game. Based on the book POINT OF IMPACT by Stephen Hunter, SHOOTER is a frantic, violent race through the streets of Philadelphia, New York, Kentucky, Washington, DC, and Ethiopia, in search of answers.

Customer Reviews

Solid Entertainment. 2 hours of action with cheese
I watched this film last night. To be honest I was expecting something pretty bad...something along the lines of The Marine (a mind numbingly stupid movie by the way). But having read some of the reviews here I was ready to give it a go - and I'm glad I did.

This film is not brilliant. It has flaws, the usual flaws that you get in many action movies - one dimensional characters that don't make a heck of a lot of sense, some plot holes that could be easily filled in. However these flaws are not so jarring - the main characters are okay and well acted and the plot holes can as I said be filled in rationally with some thought.

Having said that the storyline is fun. It is full of cliches but what modern action movie is cliché free? And it does put in some twists so the story is not entirely obvious. The action is well orchestrated and not simply blowing things up (unlike The Marine). There are elements of The Bourne Identity in fight scenes, and the sniping angle is done nicely (with heads exploding quite satisfyingly). You will have to suspend belief in a couple of the sniper shots (e.g. headshots from 200 yds out whilst standing in a small floating boat - with a .22!).

Additionally some of the secondary characters and their lines are amusing, I doubt this was intentional but sometimes cheese is good. When one lady picked up the phone and did a hair flick before answering I nearly choked on my cider.

No over the top idiot romance, or at least kept to a minimum, which is refreshing.

This film entertained me for its full 2 hours. I enjoyed it and would watch it again if a friend had rented it.

2 hours of harmless fun
This is usual action thriller with guns , explotions and a semi-decent plot.

Mark Wahlberg plays an elite unit sniper who becomes involved in a conspiracy and has to work his way out and solve some issues about his personal past.

The plot is really similar to Enemy of the state and perhaps the acting is not as good ,Danny Glover's character is painful to watch.

The action scenes are good from the beggining to the end and shooting technique is top class ( bad boys 2 style ).

Good for rental

An A1 action flick
`Shooter' stars Mark Wahlberg as former military sniper, Bob Lee Swagger who has retreated to a cabin in Montana to try to forget his time in the Marines. Unexpectedly a group of government agents led by Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) come visit Swagger and tell him that there is a sniper out there ready to kill the president and the Colonel wants to recruit Bob to give some professional advice of how it can be done by thinking as a sniper. Swagger agrees and soon finds himself pulled back into his old life of high powered, long range rifles. But things go awray and Swagger finds himself the most wanted man in the nation in a matter of minutes.

If you were to take the best parts of Tom Clancy's Patriot Games, Clear And Present Danger & Sum of All Fears and mixed in the best parts of the only good Rambo film you would end up with something akin to Shooter. It twists and turns with an elaborate conspiracy that is very convincing and it puts you into the shoes of a sniper and gives an impressive overview of the mindset that it takes to be as accurate as someone of the character of Swagger. Shooter is definitely one of the best action flicks I've seen in quite a while.