MARK WAHLBERG - MOVIE REVIEWS: SHOOTER

Critics have concluded that Mark Wahlberg's performance in Shooter will likely be a crowd pleaser. Most of them, however, have reservations about it, despite the fact that one of their own, Washington Post movie critic Stephen Hunter, wrote the novel on which the movie is based. "Hunter certainly won't review Shooter himself, but I suspect he'd be honest enough to give the movie what it deserves: a middling endorsement," remarks Michael Booth in the Denver Post. In fact, Scott Eyman, who did review the movie in that newspaper, gave it just that.) Comments Kyle Smith in the New York Post: "Though the movie has some mild pretensions to rank with great paranoia films like Three Days of the Condor, mostly it's content to deliver Salisbury steak-and-mashed-potatoes action, with lots of thunking of ammo." Similarly, Kenneth Turan writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Shooter has its pro forma, paint-by-numbers elements, but it is executed with such efficiency and energy by action maestro Antoine Fuqua, that ignoring flaws and becoming involved in the proceedings isn't a matter of choice."

23/03/2007