Sniper: Ghost Shooter

As former military, I'm particular about realism. Although this movie had it's share of cinematic liberty, for a sniper movie, it was actually quite good. As soon as I saw "Billy Zane" in the opening credits, I groaned a little. He has matured quite a bit since "Sniper"...plus, they didn't play up the role of GMSgt "Gunny" Beckett too much (the lead role is his son, Brandon Beckett), so that made it less like a sequel and more like a continuing story line. It was just a good, action-packed "heavy on the sniper action" flick. If you like military movies, specifically sniper movies, you'll enjoy it. You won't say it's the best sniper movie ever, but you'll watch it to the end without puking.

Not as good as Shooter (Mark Wahlberg), not as good as the original Sniper (Tom Berenger), but a darn close third place, with every other sniper movie falling way behind IMHO. A little too much cheese at times, but countered with some slightly comedic moments (the Russian talking about John McClane from Die Hard...yippie-ki-yay, MF'er, etc). It had it's snicker moments for sure, but pretty much action-packed from beginning to end, which I love.

Overall, a definite watch. Maybe not a "keep forever and watch again and again", but unless you're one of those people who want to dissect cinematography (really well done here), or the director's mood or previous works and how it compares, you'll enjoy it for what it is. Lots of sniper shots, lots of "Semper Fi" moments, and just a decent movie. I'd watch it again, but not anytime soon.

Some performances not so good, one or two special effects could be better, quite a bit of corny dialog. Would have been really good if not for those things. Well worth watching as long as you don't take it seriously and you like action movies with lots of shooting and blood. Some reviewers have said some of the things would never happen like that. They probably didn't like Die Hard either.

I watched this on a bootleg site that was all written in Arabic. The copy of the DVD had Arabic subtitles. I couldn't help wondering how that audience receives a movie like this, let alone do they enjoy watching it? Maybe they don't care, they just pirate the movies and make their money.

Anyway, I've been out of the "Sniper" loop since about the second one (What are we on now? 12?) so I needed to do a little catching up. I have to say that this wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Sure the visual fx were pretty cheesy and the dialog was, at times, embarrassing. But over all it far surpassed anything Steven Seagal has done in the last decade or so (with the possible exception of The Cockpuncher) So, in doing a little research I discovered that just about anyone associated with these films is either trying to get a career started or pretending their career isn't yet over.

There was, in fact some decent acting. You can tell a good actor when he delivers the cheesiest line in a way that almost makes you believe him (or her)

But the one overlying factor was that whenever Dennis Haysbert was on screen I kept expecting him to say, "That's Allstate's stand. Are you in good hands?"

Then it might have made more sense. It goes from little details like throwing a small bit of camouflage over just the rifle's scope (why bother?) to breaking the world's best encryption with a field laptop (WTF?). I, too, was waiting for the inflatable boats to be sunk by mini-gun fire from Apache attack helicopters. They must be using a brand-new armor plated rubber. And what's with those bad guys standing on a porch being picked off one by one by the sniper protagonist when there is a door for them to run thru and take cover? Snipers generally work solo, and for good reason - not in squads. Some were in ghillie suits, but most were not.

Sniper: Ghost Shooter is a very light duty action flick to be watched if nothing better is available.

Great acting. Great effects. Right amount of action and Gore.