Shooter: Critic Reviews

The ultimate crime of this paranoid enemy-of-the-state pulp, directed with more style than brains by Antoine Fuqua, is how dull it is.

Muscles bulge and heads explode in this thoroughly reprehensible, satisfyingly violent entertainment about men and guns and things that go boom.

The cinematic equivalent of one of those chunky special-forces-porn airport novels.

Despite gripping chase sequences and a few awe-inspiring fiery explosions, gaping holes in the convoluted plot make Shooter heavier on style than substance.

It's a story that can be transplanted from genre to genre, because we never grow tired of it, which is to say that it fits snugly into the paranoid drift of American movies, and the value we place on one honest man with a gun.

A stylish but essentially businesslike smash-and-crasher.

The plot is so dense and cockamamie, trying to follow it isn't worth the bother.

Shooter's covert intent could have been satire. Overtly, though, it's definitely about shooting, betrayal and shooting. In that order.

A sleek, scattershot and vigorously incoherent vigilante flick that assumes the high ground just long enough to slay every corrupt dirt-ball in its path.

Director Antoine Fuqua knows how to stage and shoot scenes of violence and chaos so that they build without ever bubbling over into absurdity.

Shooter boasts a likable hero and the possibility of a sequel, and Hollywood rarely asks for a more storybook ending than that.

This is the first big-studio action picture (the director is Antoine Fuqua) with some of the disgusted, bloody nihilism of the post-Vietnam era.

The engaging, fast-talking idiosyncrasy of [Wahlberg's] performance in The Departed has vanished.

While it's fast-paced and often something of a nail-biter, Shooter doesn't really pay off, other than merely give us a lot of action, merely for action's sake.

For years Wahlberg has been turning into a real actor, and if he ever gets the action hero role he deserves, we'll let you know.

The story is often ridiculous, but director Antoine Fuqua provides plenty of fun distractions, including an evil Russian in a wheelchair, a conniving U.S. senator, and a heroine who favors tank tops.

A chase movie and a pretty crafty thriller, Shooter owes a lot to Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor.

A high-caliber action movie that gives '70s revenge fantasies a contemporary spin.

Begins with a semblance of rationality, then flies off the rails, plunging into a series of bloody shootouts and pointless explosions.

Its skeptical, disillusioned take on big government and official deceptions should strike a vibrant chord with a wide range of audiences.

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.

It features a gritty, macho performance by Mark Wahlberg, stinging political commentary and more 'Here's how you do that' moments than the complete MacGuyver collection on DVD.

It may not qualify as a masterpiece, yet is a masterful thriller nonetheless.

Like most modern action films, Shooter is too explicit, more interested in mayhem than motive.

Shooter is far more complicated than it needs to be, taking more crazy twists and turns than it should.