From the Heartland

This is my soap box, on these pages I publish my opinions on firearms and any other subject I feel like writing about.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

It's not the movie I wanted to see but ...

Shooter aka Point of Impact

Having read or listened to all of Stephen Hunters books about "Bob Lee Swagger" and his dad "Earl" I was anticipating the release of the movie "Shooter".

Shooter is supposed to be based on Hunters book "Point of Impact". What I was hoping to see is a period based movie on the book as written.

What I saw was a modernized version. In the print version "Bob Lee" began his military start and end in the 1960's jungles of Southeast Asia. In the movie "Bob's" military career ended in present day Africa.

No it was not the movie I was hoping they would make but I feel like it is a good movie none the less.

The basic premise is still the same;

A retired Marine Corp sniper after losing his spotter to enemy fire retires, along with his dog to a hermits life in the mountains. A few years later his is recruited by a supposed Government agency to prevent an alleged plot to assasinate the President.

As the plot turns the President was not the intended target and "Bob Lee" is framed for the assassination.

When I heard that the movie had been made in the present tense I was determined to see it anyway and cop an attitude about how badly Hollywood had screwed up another good book.

Much to my chagrin I liked what they did. The basic plot and suprise ending remained and for the most part there was no over the top violence simply for the sake of violence.

There were a few verbal snipes about the current state of politics, but over all I think they did a good job of morphing the "Bob Lee" of the 1970's to a believable first decade of the 2000's "Bob Lee".

No comments: