Bullet Points: Sniper Reloaded
Tom Berenger was awesome as Thomas Beckett in the original Sniper. That movie pretty much did everything right when it came to showing a career military guy and the young whipper-snapper who was sent to basically replace him. They had made two sequels which, like always, failed to live up to the greatness of the original but this one didn’t even star Berenger. It just mentions him every 10 minutes. It definitely had an effect on my review, check it out….
Everyone needs to contact Paul Christensen at MovieWeb.com and tell him he’s an idiot.
The Gist: Brandon Beckett, son of the great sniper Thomas Beckett, is deployed to Africa as a Marine working under the U.N. After his squad is ambushed and he is wounded, he partners with a mysterious sniper who had worked with his father in years past. Beckett learns that his ambush wasn’t a coincidence and that another sniper may have been involved.
The Cast: Chad Michael Collins plays our hero and an almost convincing Marine. Let me get this straight; I wasn’t a Marine but I know and have served with many of them. It’s not that he is terrible in the role but just the behavior of the men that is a complete mess. Chad does look a lot like a young Tom Berenger so that was kind of cool. The British lady playing the love interest was pretty useless. None of what she did helped in any way. It was obviously just some dumb love interest bull shit. As if this is a series designed for the casual female viewer. They had to have a white safari dude in there somewhere. I guess you can’t film a movie in Africa and just cast African guys. Billy Zane appears for a whole 20 minutes before the end of the movie and adds some much need charisma.
If their goal was to cast someone who kinda looked like a young Berenger I guess it was successful.
The Villain: Without spoiling the “twist” of who the man pulling the strings is, the villain in this piece is a real let down. Doing a film in Africa could have given them an opportunity to have a much more evil villain. The sniper killing everbody was also a real piece of crap. He wasn’t that effective, in all honesty, and in the end he went down like a bitch. For this movie being almost a new beginning for the franchise, it failed to deliver a solid hero or villain.
The Action: I can’t say that I really enjoyed any of the action scenes all that much. The only character throughout the movie that I slightly cared about was Billy Zane and even that was only because of his history with the franchise. The sniper scenes weren’t done particularly well and does every movie have to do that same scene where the sniper shoots through the other snipers scope?
I like how he makes no attempt to use the scope.
Take it Home:
- HUH?: How can it be too dangerous to chopper in but it’s ok to drive all day to get to a location in the middle of the desert?
- Sniper Life: Love interests, daddy issues, and rescuing a bunch of kids…that is not what I want in a movie about snipers.
- Classic villain: If you love it when the villain tells his entire plan right before he kills you then you’ll love this one.
Rating: 2/5
