(Opens This Weekend)
I like Mark Wahlberg. I think he is a good actor who was under appreciated for a long time. And I think he does the tough guys types specially well, always adding something interesting and different.
That said, he is also the guy who starred in Rock Star.
I think Antoine Fuqua is a talented guy. Training Day is a great movie. What is most remembered is Denzel’s acting, but the whole film works.
That said, he is also the guy who directed King Arthur, a movie that managed to completely waste both Clive Owen and Keira Knightley.
So we have two capable guys who have also had some bad films in their curriculum. And if the trailer is any indication, I’m afraid Shooter will go down as another of the bad ones.
It’s not that the wrongfully accused/seeking revenge/paranoid thriller can’t work. It can, and has. But it is so much more easy for it to fail. And since these genres have been done to death you should always try to add something different, that allows your movie to stand out from the pack.
The trailer shows no aspect of the film that could serve that purpose. And even more than that, It gives us a sense that we saw the whole story and there are no surprises left. This could not be the case, but it is the sense one gets. And the story we see is not particularly exciting.
I think I stay away from this one, unless I hear some really good things from other people.