Shooter

NO VACANCY–A friend of mine called this The Motel Has Eyes. Well, sort of. Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson check into an old motel where the only video options are of people getting killed in the room they’re in right now. Then they notice the cameras.

I’m barely interested in this “Big Brother”/Psycho mixture. Mainly just because it’s a horror movie and the amazingly beautiful Kate is in it. Otherwise, I’m just not so into it.

NEXT–If we ever needed an action sequel to Raising Arizona, this is it. But we never needed it, so why?

Nic Cage is a guy who can see into the future. Jessica Biel is his girlfriend. (Heh) And Julianne Moore is a government (?) agent who is after his “gift.” Gotta be crap.

DISTURBIA–Rear Window for the post-Gen Y set. Hmmm. I actually want to see this one. It played SXSW this year, but I didn’t get to see it. Eventually, though…

THE CONDEMNED–What the fuck is this? It must be the American version of Battle Royale. But, since they will NEVER remake that over here with actual kids, they made everybody adult wrestlers. And Vinnie Jones.

This is bullshit. Hollywood should be shot.

Ok. Enough bad previews. Let’s get to the presidential assassination attempt.

Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) is hired by Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) to figure out how someone could assassinate the president in the next week. After he tells him, he is set up to take the fall for the attempt where the Ethiopian president is “accidentally” killed instead.

The rest of the movie is Bob running around the country trying to prove that he didn’t do it. Luckily, he ran into FBI agent Nick Memphis (Michael Pena from Crash), who believed him when he stole his gun and said, “I didn’t kill the president.” Nick starts to look into it and, with the help of a co-worker (tv hottie Rhona Mitra), starts to piece things together.

Meanwhile, Bob goes to Sarah (Kate Mara from the Tim Allen abortion, Zoom) the widow of his military buddy. They do a pretty good job of coming just on the edge of having them fall in love, but not making it totally weird and annoying.

Which is about the quality of the movie, actually. They come really close to being an annoyingly silly action movie, but don’t quite make the jump, so it comes across as being a pretty cool action movie that tries to have brains…and almost succeeds. It’s a fun action flick with a decent story and (I hear) accurate military jargon.

Mark is pretty good in his Ahnold role, but he’s surrounded by people who are…um…less than stellar. Pena is not so good as a novice FBI agent just a few weeks out of the academy. The girls are alright, but not great. And Danny Glover is…well….weird. Ever since Saw I think he’s lost some of his talent. And what the fuck is up with his teeth? Does he have two rows? Is he turning into a shark? Did he need to lisp, so they gave him some weird prostetic?

My friends and I were trying to figure out who would have starred in this movie 10-20 years ago. Because, even with the political overtones, it totally could have been made back then. Maybe Ahnold, but he wouldn’t have been smart enough. Tom Berenger? Segal? Van Damme?

I liked the movie. It was a fun action movie that, even with all of the political stuff, was basically just a bit of fluff that happened to have a couple of real actors and a semi-real director (Antoine Fuqua–Training Day, King Arthur). Check it out if you’re up for it.