Sniper (1993)

What a waste of my time!!!

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

"Sniper" is a gritty film about an American Marine ace shooter. Tom Berenger plays Thomas Beckett, a sniper who does assassinations for the U.S. government. He's a jungle expert whose targets are Central and South American rebel leaders and drug lords. Since he takes out men who oppress the local people and who build kingdoms on the addiction of thousands of others, viewers might be inclined to empathize with Beckett. But the gruesomeness of cold-blooded killing takes its toll on all such people. Beckett tells his partner in this last mission, Richard Miller (played by Billy Zane), that the worst part after an assassination is when it no longer hurts. This film has a good plot that shows the emotional effects of such killing assignments. It also provides a close-up look at survival in such a field of "work."

The film seems to try to be too many things at once, has a lack lustre plot and has not aged well. It often comes off as ridiculous as Rambo but you can tell the director, Llosa it is trying to evoke serious emotions. Everyone displays dry performances and even though Berenger was the highlight of the cast, he still seems to be partially coasting through the film which is disappointing considering he was fantastic in Platoon only several years prior. The plot has a very typical "mission" which I would not critique by itself but there is no real climax and you will probably feel unfulfilled by the end. Finally, the many decisions by the director like the in flight bullet effects, Scope point of views and slow motion hits and deaths along with everything touched on earlier make it painfully cheesy and something that you would expect in a much older movie considering what else was already done in the genre and what was being put out in 1993. Ultimately I went in expecting a different type of military movie based on Berenger's previous performances. Even though it would not be on my list of recommendations, if you go in with a hankering for mindless action and cheese, you will probably be entertained enough.

Hardboiled veteran Marine sniper Tom Beckett (ably played with steely resolve by Tom Berenger) and eager, but inexperienced rookie marksman Richard Miller (a fine performance by Billy Zane) are assigned to pull off a difficult covert mission in which they must venture into the Central American jungle in order to assassinate a powerful rebel leader and his Columbian drug lord backer. Director Luis Llosa brings a commendable mean'n'lean sense of efficiency to the tight and gripping story: The quick pace rarely flags for a minute, the tone is appropriately tough and gritty, the tension builds quite nicely, the dense jungle locations are neatly taken advantage of, and the exciting action set pieces are staged with skill and flair. Moreover, the radical contrast between Beckett's tightlipped no-nonsense machismo and Miller's wide-eyed aiming to please naivete gives this picture extra substance and resonance while the theme on how being a sniper takes a heavy toll on one's soul and conscience provides a surprising amount of poignancy. Best of all, this film has a praiseworthy stripped-down simplicity to it that ensures that there's a refreshing dearth of both cornball humor and needless sappy sentiment. Both Bill Butler's sharp cinematography and Gary Chang's spare moody score are up to speed. An on the money movie.

I remember being mildly entertained by this slow moving action film back in the day and re-watching it now, I was again mildly entertained. Tom Berenger plays an army sniper who is saddled with a new young know-it-all partner, Billy Zane, and the two must work together on a dangerous mission in South America. The one part of the film that was burned into my memory is a key sequence where the two are outside a military compound trying to move into position for a shot on their target. The best moment of that sequence is Zane looking through a scope across the field only to see a clump of grass unexpectedly slide across the field, which is Berenger stealthily getting into position. The build-up to this sequence of Berenger and Zane trekking through the jungle is not especially well written, but the two actors make the most of it and do manage to make it watchable. The events of the film occurring afterwards aren't all that interesting either. The filmmakers clearly wanted to make this a taught psychological thriller of dueling snipers and diverging world views, but the script is nowhere smart enough for that. I did see that Walon Green ("The Wild Bunch" "Hill Street Blues") was one of the executive producers and Barry Levinson ("The Wire" "Bugsy") was attached to direct at one point, so very likely this was going to be a much smarter film somewhere along the line. Still, that one set piece in the middle of the film and strong performances by Berenger and Zane make "Sniper" worth checking out. The great J.T. Walsh also appears in the film, but if you want a great sniper duel film, watch "Enemy at the Gates" instead.