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Mile 22
(STX Films)
By Lucas Allen
In the past few years, the team of actor Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg has delivered some successful true-life action dramas, including “Lone Survivor,” “Deepwater Horizon” and “Patriots Day.” But with their latest collaboration, wall-to-wall action film “Mile 22,” they decided to just have a little fun.
However, what you’ll read about this movie will make you rather see “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” in IMAX for the second time.
James Silva (Wahlberg) leads a top secret undercover team of covert assassins, Overwatch, that does missions without alerting authorities. Their work is being watched over by their boss Bishop (John Malkovich), whom they call by his code name, Mother.
At their headquarters in Southeast Asia, double agent Li Noor (Iko Uwais) walks in with a disc containing evidence involving his government plotting to cause terror in the United States. When he refuses to reveal a code to open the disc and demands to be escorted out of the country by plane, the team has no choice but to oblige.
Silva along with frustrated divorcee Alice Kerr (Lauren Cohen) and tough girl Sam Snow (Ronda Rousey) soon enough put their effort together to make their next mission happen.
All the team has to do is to drive 22 miles from their base to an airport to deliver Li successfully.
Things quickly turn from bad to worse as they’re hunted by groups of Russian and Chinese agents determined to terminate the double agent. Berg seems to be having an off day when he decided to trade in some serious filmmaking of his earlier films, going all Michael Bay on a sugar rush with this film.
The action scenes are way too kinetic in their editing and it’s difficult to tell who’s punching whom and who’s shooting whom at times. Whoever edited this film must’ve been told to make it feel like a Bourne movie, only to make the audience feel like they’re spinning around in an office chair over and over again. The editing is so poor it makes “A Good Day to Die Hard” look like “The Dark Knight.”
There also something questionable about the screenplay, between its half-baked story and despicable characters. It’s like they’re trying to design it to be a modern day version of one of those ’80s macho action films, only missing any semblance of the charm that made those movies entertaining.
The characters lack so much likability that you’ll wonder what possessed the writers to think we should care about them that way. Uwais must be quite an excellent martial arts performer and demonstrates amazing fighting skills in some of his action scenes. It’s too bad that the bad editing doesn’t show much of it, but keeps cutting too quickly from one shot to another.
There also seems to be a severe lack of a proper three-act structure with the story. It felt like the first act is mainly talky scenes and the second act is all action, while the third act is nonexistent. For a 90-minute movie, it has trouble slowing down and speeding up at any perfect moment.
As much as Wahlberg is incredibly talented at action, comedy and drama, his performance is really one-noted and unreasonable that way. His only emotion throughout is anger, and that doesn’t make for an interesting lead character. In fact, all the other actors also give one-note performances display at least one emotion making the whole experience feel really shallow. The worst offender is Malkovich, who looks bored in all of his scenes.
In the dog days of summer, “Mile 22” is a real dog. It’s an action film where the bullets fly, punches are thrown, and nothing else can add substance to it. If anything, it’s one of those titles that deserve a spot at the $5 bargain bin at your favorite retail store and pretty much forgotten.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: R (for strong violence and language throughout)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 1.5 Stars (Out of Four)
