Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg of The Italian Job) is a sharpshooter for hire by the US government, specializing in off the books foreign assassinations. After Swagger’s spotter is killed next to him while the two are on a mission in Africa, and he is left to escape on his own by the government, Swagger permanently retires to a remote cabin in the mountains.  

Retired Colonel Johnson (Danny Glover of Barn Yard and Manderlay) comes calling on Swagger for a short mission to save the life of the US President. Although Swagger is bitter with regards to the government, he is both loyal and a patriot. That, and the fact that Colonel Johnson is a Medal of Honor winner, seals the deal.  

Swagger is one of the few shooters who can factor in all the variances to make a kill shot from an extreme distance. As such, he’s the person to tell authorities where the kill shot would come from. The government has knowledge of a planned assassination within the next two weeks in one of three cities. Since they know where the President will be speaking, the locations can be narrowed down. What they need is the exact location where an assassin might be able to make the kill and escape. The plot twist is that this is a set up to frame Swagger for murder.  

After the assassination, Swagger barely manages to escape being killed himself and he becomes the Lee Harvey Oswald of today as America’s most wanted man. Fortunately, as part of his training as a killer, he has learned how to survive. 

Later he teams up with FBI agent Nick (Michael Pena of WTC and Babel) and Sarah (Kate Mara) to prove his innocence and seek revenge. We’d like to call it justice, but although the bad guys get their due, the system does not change. The more we think about these circumstances, the more chillingly accurate this may be. 

Conspiracy theories and not too kind overt observations about current US foreign policy abound.  Some may not like that aspect of the film, others will. It illustrates that being a patriot does not mean you have to believe that the Commander in Chief does not tell bold lies, or that “stay the course” is the preferred term selected because a major blunder would have to be admitted. We, as Americans, should be past the admonition put forth in the film A Few Good Men that “You can’t handle the truth.” 

The screenplay, by Jonathan Lemkin (Red Planet), is adapted from the novel “Point of Impact,” by Stephen Hunter, who has a series of books featuring the character Bob Lee Swagger. Hunter also won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for his writing as a film critic.  

Director Antoine Fuqua delivers consistently good but not great action movies such as this, Training Day, King Arthur and Tears of the Sun. We liked the film but would prefer to see his work elevate to the level of a movie like Bourne Supremacy (same director that did United 93). In the future Fuqua will make a masterful action thriller with the political maturity of Babel or United 93.