| Shooter | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Antoine Fuqua |
| Screenplay by | Jonathan Lemkin[1] |
| Based on | Point of Impact 1993 novel byStephen Hunter |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Peter Menzies Jr. |
| Edited by |
|
| Music by | Mark Mancina |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 124 minutes[2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $61 million[3] |
| Box office | $95.7 million[3] |
Shooter is a 2007 Americanaction thriller film directed byAntoine Fuqua[4] and written byJonathan Lemkin, based on the 1993 novelPoint of Impact byStephen Hunter.[5] The film followsForce Recon MarineScout Sniper veteranBob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg), who isframed for murder by a mercenary unit operating for aprivate military firm. The film also starsMichael Peña,Danny Glover,Kate Mara,Levon Helm, andNed Beatty.[4]
Shooter was produced byLorenzo di Bonaventura throughDi Bonaventura Pictures, and released byParamount Pictures in the United States on March 23, 2007. The film received mixed reviews and grossed $95.7 million on a $61 million budget.
Force ReconScout Snipers Gunnery Sergeant Bob Lee Swagger and his spotter Donnie Fenn provideoverwatch for a military mission inEthiopia. The mission was successful, but the enemy militia assaulted Swagger and Fenn's position with helicopter support. The CIA officer supervising the operationdisavows the mission and strands them in enemy territory, resulting in Fenn's death.
Three years later, Swagger is retired and lives in theWind River Range,Wyoming. Colonel Isaac Johnson seeks Swagger's help to prevent a possibleassassination attempt on the President during a speaking event. Reluctantly, Swagger agrees and identifiesPhiladelphia as the best location, pinpointing likely sniper spots.
Swagger joins Johnson at an overwatch position during the speech. The shot kills Ethiopian Archbishop Desmond Mutumbo, the President's guest. A police officer on Johnson's payroll shoots Swagger, who escapes, disarms rookie FBI Agent Nick Memphis, and flees into theDelaware River. Soon, evidence, including Swagger'sCheyTac M200 sniper rifle as the murder weapon, emerges, initiating a manhunt. Memphis grows suspicious of the rapid conclusions, exacerbated by the officer's odd death, and begins his own investigation.
Evading authorities, Swagger travels toKentucky and meets Fenn's widow, Sarah, who treats his injuries. Sarah and Swagger feed Memphis information, furthering his investigation until he catches Johnson's attention. Johnson orders his men to kill Memphis. Before they can stage Memphis' suicide, Swagger kills them. Swagger releases Memphis and requests his help bringing down Johnson.
The two travel toTennessee and meet with firearms expert Mr. Rate, who explainspaper patching. Rate deduces that, aside from Swagger, the only other person alive capable of making such a shot is the wheelchair-bound Serbian sniper Mikhaylo Sczerbiak. Swagger concludes that he was used to conductreconnaissance for Sczerbiak. At the same time, Sarah's connection to Swagger is uncovered, and Payne abducts her.
In Virginia, Swagger and Memphis infiltrate Sczerbiak's estate, where Sczerbiak reveals Johnson works for U.S. Senator Charles Meachum on behalf ofoil conglomerates exploiting developing nations for profit. Under Johnson's order, Sczerbiak assassinated Mutumbo to prevent Johnson'scrimes against humanity from going public. Swagger and Fenn had unknowingly covered the contractors who massacred an entire village on theEritrea–Ethiopia border and were supposed to be killed to cover it up. As mercenaries close in on the estate, Sczerbiak reveals Sarah's abduction and then commits suicide. With the recorded confession, Swagger and Memphis shoot their way out. The pair escapes to Montana, tips off the FBI, and arranges a meeting with Meachum and Johnson.
Johnson, Meachum, and Payne arrive at the rendezvous point on a snowy mountaintop, with Sarah held at gunpoint. With Memphis as a decoy, Swagger eliminates Johnson'scounter-snipers and disarms Payne, whom Sarah kills shortly after. Meachum crypticallyimplies he is not the only politician who works for the oil companies. Deducing that the proof will get them killed, Swagger destroys the recording as the FBI arrives to arrest him.
Swagger meets withUS Attorney General Russert. With Memphis's assistance, Swagger discloses that his unattended rifles, including his supposed murder weapon, have all had their firing pins replaced with slightly shorter ones, making them unusable; Johnson's men had stolen the rifle and retrieved a bullet that he had practiced using as part of the setup. Memphis provides Russert with evidence cataloging Johnson's involvement in the village massacre and other crimes. Swagger's name is cleared, but Johnson cannot be arrested since his crimes fall outside U.S. jurisdiction. Privately, Russert casually notes thatextrajudicial measures may be necessary to address the corruption before ordering Swagger's release.
Later, Meachum, Johnson, and their associates discuss their next operation before Swagger attacks and kills them all. He ruptures the gas line, frames Johnson as the assailant, and escapes just as the house is engulfed in a massive gas explosion. Swagger returns to Sarah in a waiting car and drives off together.
The novelPoint of Impact was in development first at Universal and later at Paramount for twelve years, with seven screenwriters attempting many adaptations. The authorStephen Hunter also tried to adapt the book but was put off by the experience and disconnected himself from the process.[1] In 2000,William Friedkin agreed to direct the film withTommy Lee Jones starring asBob Lee Swagger.[6] However, the writers were unable to complete a script, and Friedkin and Jones to decide to makeThe Hunted (2003) instead. That film incorporated many of Friedkin’s ideas forShooter, and its protagonist L.T. Bonham was also based on Jones’s planned portrayal of Swagger. Friedkin expressed interest in additionally directingShooter as a sequel toThe Hunted, but ultimately did not.[7]
Jonathan Lemkin read the book and some of the previous drafts and was able to avoid repeating some of the same mistakes. Lemkin updated the story away from the original post Vietnam setting, and restructured the story bringing the main event to the end of the first act, and to cut the multiple plot lines down to just the A story. Hispage 1 rewrite of the screenplay attracted Wahlberg and Fuqua, and on his second draft, the film got the green light to go into production. Unusual for a screenplay with such a long development process and multiple rewrites, Lemkin retained sole credit afterWriters Guild of America arbitration, After Paramount secured the rights to distributeShooter in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria,Focus Features came on board to handle international sales for other territories (excluding English, French and German-speaking territories).[1]
Most of the film was shot on location inNew Westminster,Kamloops,Mission,Ashcroft andCache Creek inBritish Columbia,Canada.[8] For example, Swagger's escape was filmed in New Westminster along theFraser River, standing in for theDelaware River. The car chase that ends when it plunged into the river was filmed down 6th Street and off the Westminster Quay. The following scene of Swagger clinging to the side of adredger was also filmed on the Fraser River near thePattullo Bridge.
The assassination scenes were filmed inIndependence National Historical Park in front ofIndependence Hall inPhiladelphia. The sniper location was created from using the exteriors of the church steeple at the junction of New Street and North 4th Street and combining them with an elevated view from another building to create a fictional vista of the park. The final scene was inMammoth Lakes, California, in the lakes basin.
The mountaintop confrontation was shot on theglaciers ofRainbow Mountain, near the resort town ofWhistler, British Columbia.[9]
Shooter depicts a number of sniper tactics, thanks to the guidance of former US Marine scout sniper Patrick Garrity, who trained Mark Wahlberg for the film. Garrity taught Wahlberg to shoot both left- and right-handed (the actor is left-handed), as he had to switch shooting posture throughout the movie, due to Swagger's sustained injuries. He was also trained to adjust a weapon's scope, judge effects of wind on a shot, do rapid bolt manipulation, and develop special breathing skills. His training included extreme distance shooting up to 1,100 yards (1,000 m), and the use of camouflageghillie suits. Fuqua appointed Garrity as the film's military-technical advisor.[10]
In the special features of the DVD, Garrity is interviewed pointing out that the shot fired in the assassination would not have hit the archbishop straight on, as in the film. When a round is fired it will fall from 30 to 40 feet (9 to 10 m) depending on the distance of the shot. To compensate, the round is fired at an arc calibrated by how far the round is going to fall, the distance of the shot, temperature, humidity, and wind. In his interview, Garrity said "At 2 yards (1.8 m), because of thehydrostatic shock that follows a large-caliber, high-velocity round such as the.408 Chey Tac (which is used in the shot), the target would literally be peeled apart and limbs would be flying 200 feet (60 m) away." The exit wound on the archbishop's head would have been too extreme to show in movie theaters. Instead, the movie depicts a much less graphic representation of the assassination.
Throughout the film, Swagger uses an array of sniper rifles, including the USMCM40A3,[11] theCheyTac Intervention,[12] and theBarrett M82.
The score to the film was composed byMark Mancina, who recorded the music at theTodd-AO Scoring Stage inStudio City, Los Angeles, using a 77-piece orchestra conducted byDon Harper.[13][14] A score soundtrack was released byLakeshore Records and co-published by Shoelace Music[15] on March 27, 2007. The song "Nasty Letter" byOtis Taylor plays over the end of the film and credits.
Shooter grossed $47 million in the US and Canada and $48.7 million in other territories, for a total gross of $95.7 million against its $61 million production budget.[3]
The film grossed $14.5 million in its opening weekend, finishing in 3rd at the box office behindTMNT ($24.3 million) and300 ($19.9 million).
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 47% based on 147 reviews and an average rating of 5.6/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "With an implausible story and numerous plot holes,Shooter fails to distinguish itself from other mindless action-thrillers."[16]Metacritic assigns the film a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[17] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[18]
Manohla Dargis ofThe New York Times called the film "a thoroughly reprehensible, satisfyingly violent entertainment about men and guns and things that go boom." Dargis described director Fuqua's technique as overshot and overedited, but said he has a knack for chaos and the result is "pretty enjoyable."[19]Kirk Honeycutt ofThe Hollywood Reporter gave a positive review but was critical of the weak characterization: "If the movie only lavished as much thought and care on its characters as it does on each intricate set piece, Shooter might have been a classic." Honeycutt says the problem is the screenplay by Jonathan Lemkin, and the source novelPoint of Impact by film critic and authorStephen Hunter. He highlighted Peña for his performance, and praised the technical aspects of the film, particularly the stunt work, and the camera work of Peter Menzies Jr.[20]Tony Horkins ofEmpire magazine praised the movie: "The sequel-ready Swagger challengesBourne's supremacy with an impressive shoot-'em-up, work-it-out action drama".[21]
Some film critics saw the film asleft-leaning in its politics, including arguing that the main villain (Senator Meachum) is an analogy for thenVice PresidentDick Cheney.[22][23][24]
The DVD was released on June 26, 2007, reaching the top of the US sales charts.[25] The film earned $57.6 million in DVD sales in the North America.[26] Paramount Movies released the film on 4k Ultra HD Blu-ray on March 15, 2022.[27]
In 2016,USA Network picked up aseries of the same name based on the movie, with Wahlberg as a producer andRyan Phillippe as Swagger.[28]
Distributor Paramount Pictures reported that two thirds of the audience was over 25 and the CinemaScore was "B+."
