I can’t fault a guy for knowing where his bread is buttered. Yeah, I’ve been annoyed at Marky Mark for his not-so-subtle defenses of a certain orange buffoon … but can you blame the guy? Who attends Mark Wahlberg movies? And why? If you ever see a Mark Wahlberg character promoting … hmm, what is one of the worst exaggerations of liberalism? I know, participation trophies. If you ever see a Mark Wahlberg character promoting participation trophies, you know it’s tongue-in-cheek. That’s why we “laugh” at the Daddy’s Home films – because Mark the PC appeaser is a joke. He appeals to people who pretend they prefer broken bones to participation trophies. Those folks need to hear him tell his peers to stick it, politics-wise. I’m certainly not going to blame him for that, not yet at least.
I can, however, blame him for everything he does on screen. Unfortunately, I didn’t find much to loathe about Mile 22, which appears to be in the asset column of the Marky Mark balance sheet. Rats; it’s so much more fun when The Happening happens.
The Russians are enemies again. Well, gosh, that’s a relief. The way Fox News, our red congress, and the White House tell it, I fully expect all villains, fictional or real, to be using terror in order to gain universal health care, a living wage, public education, and LGBTQ rights.
“Sir, it’s the liberals again; they’ve threatened to set nukes off in five American cities.”
“What do they want?”
“Reasonable gun control laws.”
“The bastards! When will they learn?”
Honestly? Given the Right’s sociopathic need to identify and condemn an enemy, I don’t think that film is far away. But for now, the movie villains are still Russians -just like real life- which seems darn generous given the rhetoric; it must be more fun to match wits with people who genuinely want to destroy you and your democracy than people who only want equality.
Oh yeah, there was movie here somewhere – Highly intelligent, violent, and perpetually angry James Silva (Wahlberg) is a CIA operative. They gave him a quirk where he snaps a rubber band on his wrist every time life gets “too slow” for him. That’s the excuse, anyway. My guess is it’s his way of counting to ten when he finds life frustrating, which is always. His team infiltrates a Russian compound on US soil just to show us some preliminary Tom Clancy-like badassery – yes, this is what trained people with fancy machines can do. You lose, terrorists.
The bulk of the movie actually takes place in SE Asia. We know because the screen says “Southeast Asia” without stating a specific country. It seems the film didn’t have the balls to call it Indonesia. If we’re being fair, most Americans have no idea Indonesia, the fourth most populated nation on Earth, is even a country, let alone find it on a map. Maybe
the movie hopes you’ll guess correctly … “Well, it isn’t China, Japan, India, or the Koreas … Laos? Cambodia, maybe?” Action fans get a big clue when Iko Uwais, the star of The Raid, shows up. Oh yeah, get ready for uzis and ass-kickings. The plot is far too complicated for its own good, so let me simplify it: James and his team which includes female James (Lauren Cohan) and Ronda Rousey, have got to get Iko Iko to a landing strip strip chop chop or the world goes pop pop. And from mile 1 to Mile 22, their trek is going to encounter trouble. Lots of trouble for Marky Mark and the Fun Bunch.
I suppose this film is not terribly unfamiliar. I first saw it when it was called The Gauntlet and starred Clint Eastwood alongside Sandra Locke (who else). I like that they’ve updated it for danger, martial arts, and equal opportunity ass-kicking. This film plays a lot like an urban version of Lone Survivor, which Peter Berg already made five years ago. Perhaps the fact that these aren’t soldiers in combat is off-putting given the populated cityscape. You can’t just tear apart a foreign city, can you? Huh, I guess you can. Well, even if you buy that part, you’ll never get past the “too clever for its own good” ending. I like that Mile 22 tried to put some thought into this, but action films shouldn’t make me question reality. Other than that, I don’t see any reason why the xenophobic and violence-loving Wahlberg base shouldn’t have a blast at this film whether or not they know where Indonesia is.
“Ugly American” is a term with persistence,
For in Asia, comes “tourist” resistance
Are those words even fair
To describe this nightmare
When the government denies your existence?
Rated R, 95 Minutes
Director: Peter Berg
Writer: Lea Carpenter
Genre: Advanced death and dismemberment
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of violence
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of logic
