MILE 22

Film Review by FIORE

You could subtitle this movie Peter Berg does Bourne.   He takes a decent action script, and one of Hollywood’s brightest up and coming marital arts stars, and sabotages both with slipshod cinematography, chicken shit editing and progressive political views. 

 

Berg and Mark Wahlberg are no strangers.  They have teamed up for a few good films, like DEEPWATER HORIZON and LONE SURVIVOR.  Why he opted to sabotage MILE 22 is beyond my comprehension.  He could easily have one of the finer action films of the year; I guess he just lost his mind.

The first thing Berg did wrong was hire Lea Carpenter as screenwriter.  It is her first endeavor.  She is normally an editor for Esquire Magazine.  If you’ve ever read Esquire, it is a magazine which caters to the metrosexual male and is rife with progressive liberal ideology.  This is why you can get a year’s subscription for six bucks.  No self-respecting American male wants to read that dribble, but Carpenter fills her script with it detracting from the story and the action.

The political overtones are visual, too.  When the black ops team sets up, one of the operatives decorates his workstation with bobble heads of the Presidents.  In the first sequence, the camera ends on an Obama bobble head.  In the next, it ends on a two shot of Trump and Obama bobble heads.  This is an obvious ploy to elicit cheers, or raspberries from the audience.  Cheesy shot selection.

And, on that subject, for some unknown reason, Berg teamed with cinematographer Jacques Jouffret to shoot the action sequences in the Jason Bourne style.  This is the worse type of cinematography for action films.  Its main purpose is to hide the fact the star of the film, like Matt Damon in the instance of Bourne, can’t fight.  But this film features Iko Uwais, arguably the best martial arts star today.  He is best known for his starring roles in THE RAID, and its sequel, THE RAID 2.  He is truly a master.  But his scenes, which he choreographs himself, are chopped and cut so severely, it is impossible to see what’s happening.  A total waste of talent and the viewer’s time.

Mark Wahlberg is James Silva, head of an elite black ops team.  He is portrayed as a psychopath, manic depressive.  Anyone who knows anything about the training to become a member of a special ops outfit knows this type of individual would never make the final cut.  It’s just another subtle political dig, fostering the myth that everyone in this service is mentally deranged.

Other members of his team include Alice Kerr (Lauren Cohan), who is merely present to show a woman can be a black ops operative and a caring mother simultaneously; Bishop (John Malkovich) who runs the technical operation and never once suggests he should ‘get the pig’

which would have improved his role; and Sam Snow (Rhonda Rousey) who is almost as annoying on screen as she is on Monday Night Raw.  Thankfully, she doesn’t make it past the film’s mid-point.  Finally, Iko Uwais plays Li Noor, the double agent with vital information on a weapon of mass destruction which he will provide for sanctuary.  Notice again, the working of WMDs into the script; that ruse hasn’t been poignant since the Bush Administration.

Editing by Melissa Lawson and Colby Parker is frantic; mainly to mask the poor cinematography and to allow the actors to spew progressive propaganda quickly, hoping to slide it past the viewer before comprehension sets.

This movie had the makings of a classic action spy adventure.  Using an unproven scriptwriter, just to satisfy Hollywood’s Woman Warrior agenda, and opting to incorporate cinematography not worthy of its stars, drag this endeavor to the bowels of the genre.  I truly want to see Iko Uwais become a huge star in Hollywood.  He is extremely talented.  MILE 22 does him no justice at all.