Shooter

Trading his natural charisma for tough-guy stoicism, Mark Wahlberg stars as an expert marksman who retreats into seclusion after the military leaves him stranded during a secret operation in Nigeria. He's drawn back into the fray when a consortium of government higher-ups, led by Danny Glover, asks for his help in thwarting an assassination attempt on the President. When the operation turns out to be a double-cross, a wounded Wahlberg flees the scene with seemingly every law-enforcement agent in three states on his tail. His only allies are Michael Peña, a disgraced FBI agent who starts to doubt the official line, and Kate Mara, the widow of Wahlberg's former spotter, who provides temporary cover and dresses his wounds.

At a certain point, the search for justice becomes such a farce that Shooter crosses over into an exceedingly ugly revenge film, with Wahlberg's trusty rifle popping heads like zits from a mile away. As the body count increases, the kills become so gratuitous that the effect is numbing, like watching a line of metal ducks get pinged at the state fair. Director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) keeps the action moving efficiently, but he doesn't know when to stop piling it on, and eventually, Wahlberg's army of one becomes more a comic-book vigilante than a righteously disgruntled patriot. He'll be a big hit at the next NRA meeting.