SHOOTER

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Just finished watching Shooter with Mark Wahlberg and Danny Glover. There was a decent little movie in there trying to get out. I've read some of Stephen Hunter's novels (not bad) but I haven't read Point of Impact on which this was based so I don't know if they messed up the book or not. I know that some things that work in novels won't work on film and vice versa. I liked the Wahlberg character (despite having the name Swagger) and the FBI rookie was done well. But just about everybody else was a cliche or underwritten. I love a good shoot 'em-up but I have a problem when the hero dashes several hundred yards across open ground and 24 soldiers can't hit him. Also it's time to stop forever using the scene when the hero is walking toward the camera and a fireball the size of Texas erupts behind them. There was one really cool scene -- Wahlberg is getting some information about weapons and assassinations from an old-time gunsmith. It was intriguing and a bit unique. If only the movie had been more like that one sequence then the movie would have been unique and different. Oh, well. All I can hope for is that the new Die Hard is cool (The first is one of my favorite action films). And that it's still in the theatre when I get a chance to go.