Mile 22

The director of this movie is Peter Berg. Peter Berg is the definition of a mixed bag director. On one hand you get great movies like Patriots Day. I haven't seen Lone Survivor or Deepwater Horizon, but they are two movies that are on my list. On another hand, you get mediocre films that I kind of enjoyed like Hancock and The Kingdom. But then you get really bad movies like Battleship... Mile 22 falls somewhere in the middle of The Kingdom, and Battleship in my opinion.

Mile 22 follows the story of James Silva (played by Mark Wahlberg). They have a montage while the credits are rolling that Silva grew up as a disturbed orphan who probably has some bipolar disease, but rises up the ranks of the marines and the CIA (I'll talk about that montage later). He is the leader of a secret elite team called Overwatch. They are located in some fiction South East Asian country when a man comes to them saying he knows the location of weapons that could be used for dirty bombs against the United States. He agrees to tell them where to find the weapons, but only if they get him asylum in the United States. They have to go 22 miles to an airport and the movie for the most part is an escort mission while this team gets attacked by waves and waves of enemies.

The first thing I'll say is that they don't have the worst cast for this movie. I'll talk about Wahlberg in depth later, but Rhonda Rousey is well utilized in this movie. She's not the strongest actor but she plays the GI Jane badass well and she looks cool. I don't know who Carlo Alban is but he did a good job in the film.

John Malkovich plays the guy who oversees the entire mission and he was actually kind of understated in this movie. I would have liked to know a little more about him, but since this movie is pretty much all action and not a lot of substance, he worked for me in this film. I gotta keep reminding myself that this is not a drama, its an pure shoot em up action film and I shouldn't really expect it to be any more than that, but then they throw in someone like Lauren Cohan.

You'll know Cohan most notably from The Walking Dead and I like that she's getting more work beyond The Walking Dead that's not just getting shot in the head as Martha Wayne in Batman v Superman. I liked her character in this movie. She's away from her family, she's dealing with a dick of an ex husband, she just wants to see her daughter, but she's also pretty committed to her job. I like that dynamic and I think they did an okay job at in this movie. Was it as developed or explored as much as it could be? No, because this movie is not a drama, its a shoot em up action movie.

And then there's Mark Wahlberg.

The most we learn about this character as a person is in the opening credits, and the only thing that really does is sort of explain why this guy is the biggest asshole you'll ever meet. They allude that he might be bipolar, but the thing that bugged me about Mark Wahlberg's character was that him being an asshole never felt earned. If you've ever watched House, House is an asshole, but he's good at his job so he gets a pass. Mark Wahlberg isn't just bad at his job in this movie, him being an asshole at best is just annoying, and at worst holds up other people who are good at their job from doing it.

There's a point in the movie where he's talking to your typical computer tech person in any typical espionage movie, and she says she hasn't cracked a code yet or something. He just goes off on her and I thought to myself, don't you have better things to do right now then just yelling at this girl for now reason?

He also snaps this rubber band around his wrist when he's angry, which is all the time. Now in a well written movie, this could be used to give a stoic Soldier a dramatic hint that he's angry and utilized correctly could be useful in dialogue and character interactions. But as it is, you just hear random snaps in the background of conversations and it doesn't add anything because this guy is at a 10 in anger from the start of this movie. There's no build.

One last thing is that based on the evidence provided in this movie, Mark Wahlberg is objectively bad at his job. Again, they might allude to the fact that he's a really good Soldier in the opening montage, but there is no evidence from this movie that Mark Wahlberg is a cut above the rest. He's just a Soldier with anger issues. And what makes it worse is that the entire movie has these poorly edited cut aways of Mark Wahlberg doing some conspiracy theory ramblings that I just have to roll my eyes at. Again, if I believed Mark Wahlberg was more competent in this movie, I would give these "I'm in the military and have seen some shit" ramblings some credit or at least a pass, but as it stands, it just feels like they spliced in some shots of Mark Wahlberg getting high, pounding a four loco and was a guest host on the Joe Rogan podcast.

And then there's this dude. The guy they're escorting throughout the movie.

Good parts first, he does give us probably the most visceral and high tempo action sequences in the movie. He's kind of a loose cannon and when he's able to do some hand to hand stuff, it's fun to watch.

But I can google martial art fight sequences, as a character. He's not the worst character, but he's also far from the best. I feel like in a better movie, they could have done this character better, but again, I have to remind myself, this is not a drama or a smart thriller, this is Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg wanting to do some high tempo action sequences and pretending like there's a competent plot to it.

 The most interesting part of this movie is that this movie feels like a prequel to another movie or a TV show that doesn't exist. Without giving anything away, this movie ends with an indication that there should be a sequel and there is a larger story yet to be told. After doing some research I figured out that it was intended to be a launching point for a series and a sequel, but that just makes this movie all the more confusing.

I feel like this story would be better served as a series because you could delve into the history of this team Overwatch, the stories behind characters like Mark Wahlberg's character and others. This movie was so short, it felt like an extended special feature prequel to a TV that doesn't exist the same way 24 used to have extra content outside of the show to help explain the events leading up to a season. And while I liked some of those extra content videos, I like them with context.

And I would like this movie if it wasn't just meant to be a heavy on the action shoot em up prequel to a dumb webseries I'm probably not gonna watch.

The Kingdom was a poorly executed movie, but I enjoyed the characters, the action, and the topic. Hancock was a poorly executed movie, but I enjoyed the characters, the action, and the topic. Mile 22 is just a bad movie with characters I don't like or who are underdeveloped, the action is great, but the topic seems rushed and resigns itself to a 90 minute escort mission instead of fleshing out what could have worked here.

If you haven't seen Mile 22, for the love of god, don't spend money on it. Wait until the series comes out and maybe watch this movie for free to get some context, but if they're going to develop the character of James Silva, wait until they do it for real.

Those were my thoughts on Mile 22, what did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter, @MovieSymposium as well as send me your request for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading.