Checked out the amazingly titled (if, by amazing, I mean boring) Mark Wahlberg actioner Mile 22. Or 23. Or Generic Movie Title, Hope You Don’t Forget It. This film is directed by the same fella who made three other recent Wahlberg flicks (Lone Survivor, Deep Water Horizon, and Patriot’s Day – all better movies).
Mile 22 is about a generic undercover military outfit trying to get an informant to an airstrip while fighting and fleeing from assassins trying to stop them. You might even say they have to travel 22 miles to safety.
Mark Wahlberg plays a guy with some kind of hyperactive disorder and is ruder than the usual Wahlberg character (and snaps a rubber band on his wrist to keep his focus). Otherwise he plays Mark Wahlberg in Action Guy mode. Lauren Cohan (Maggie from the Walking Dead) plays a competent female soldier with a backstory.. she’s a mom and wants to stay in contact with her kids during a divorce when she can’t divulge her location or activity. Ronda Rousey plays another soldier and does a fair job with few lines. John Malkovich plays the soldier’s contact at base, by which I mean he showed up for a day’s work and got to yell into his earprice for a couple hours. Ka-ching!
The guy they have to save is the action star from the Raid movies. So you know his martial arts butt-kickery is good. If they didn’t edit ALL the actions scenes to within an inch of their lives.
Because while this is a nice, shiny, glossy action flick made with some level of competence, for some reason they chopped it into little tiny bits. Constant cuts and edits, even during action scenes – and dialog scenes – that didn’t need them. On top of that… shaky cam madness. The movie was so hyperactive, it should have had a rubber band on its wrist to keep it focused.
Besides that, there’s not much story here and not enough characterization. Maybe with that, the spastic actions would be tolerable. But with both being a failure, this movie, which might have otherwise been decent, just kind of crashes. It’s not unwatchable, but I’m not quite sure why you’d want to.
Score: 68