Our mumbly mountain man (Marky Mark, with the pornstar name of Bob Lee Swagger), a war veteran let down by the government he believed in, is called back to duty to protect the president1 from a long range rife assassination. Whoops! He’s set up and accused of capping the guy standing right next to the president. He’s on the run! The opening of Shooter sorta resembles The Fugitive and sorta exciting, as long as you suspend the fact that he seems to drive his getaway car around Philadelphia in full sight of 1000 helicopters and police cars and is not noticed or stopped by any roadblocks that would have instantly arisen.
But later in the movie, things get darker, like a shinny 2000s version of Charles Bronson or Dirty Harry as Mark gets all extroverted-Kaczynski, exacting self-righteous murders of the shadowy men who did him wrong.
1 Casting “the president” in your action movie must be a thorny task. You’re not making a parody so you have to make sure your man doesn’t resemble any presidents past or present or else the audience will laugh or think you’re trying to make some ham-handed point. Yet the guy still has to look “presidential” and what’s that, really? The casting call can probably be boiled down as, “Tall white guy, mildly charismatic, late 40s/early 50s, nice hair.” [back]