“I don’t think you understand. These boys killed my dog.”

Left for dead behind enemy lines when an unsanctioned mission in Ethiopia goes awry, ace marksman Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) returns to his country disillusioned and traumatized. Three years later, now living in seclusion in the mountains of Wyoming and sporting a ponytail, living off the land with his trustworthy pooch, Swagger finds his idyllic self-exile torn away from him by his own sense of patriotic duty. Called on by Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) to submit a carefully detailed plan to assassinate the United States President—so as to prevent a seemingly legitimate, looming threat—he foolhardily provides his expertise with a swell of pride, once again serving the people of his beloved country.

But any old halfwit should have known that you don’t go through the motions of a faux assasination just to back out at the last minute. On the fateful day in the City of Brotherly Love, Swagger is framed for the long-range shot that takes out an Ethiopian archbishop and catches a few bullets himself before crashing through a window and commandeering an FBI vehicle. Somehow, he manages to claw his way into hiding so that he can recuperate and plan his revenge. A nationwide manhunt ensues, during which rookie FBI Special Agent Nick Memphis (Michael Peña) launches his own rogue investigation that leads him to believe Swagger was framed by the government. Meanwhile, Swagger ropes in his former partner’s widow (Kate Mara) and uncovers a conspiracy involving a Machiavellian U.S. Senator (Ned Beatty). There’s also a nice cameo for good old Levon Helm as a half blind gunsmith.

Nothing, no matter how horrible, ever really happens without the approval of the government.

I don’t love Shooter. The story is ridiculous and over-the-top, full of plot holes and stock characters. And even though Antoine Fuqua proves extremely adept at directing explosive action sequences (much credit is due to editors Conrad Buff and Eric Sears as well), those very same are used to compensate for a dreadfully threadbare story. On the other hand, I have a certain fondness for it simply because its strong anti-government streak is something that no major studio would touch with a ten foot pole in today’s politically-heated times.

Now, it is undeniably true that Hollywood’s bigwigs are shamelessly willing to ram certain messages down our throats left, right, and center—well, left anyway. And don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly acceptable to make didactic films in today’s environment.¹ Most of them suck, however, that’s a different discussion than the one we’re having here. In any case, one message that you don’t hear too often is that a sitting U.S. Senator deserves to be brutally executed at gunpoint—not for his crimes (of which there are plenty), but by virtue of the simple fact that he is an American Senator. That’s a pretty radical stance, and while it’s not suggested outright by Jonathan Lemkin’s script (based on Stephen Hunter’s novel Point of Impact), the sentiment that power breeds corruption is definitely prominent.

Bob Lee Swagger: I don’t really like the President much. Didn’t like the one before that, much, either.
Colonel Isaac Johnson: You like the idea of the President, living in a free country. Do we allow America to be ruled by thugs?
Swagger: Sure, some years we do.

What strikes me as quite amusing is that when the film was released, Dubya was President and thus it was right-leaning critics who took issue with the implications of this particular big dumb action movie, claiming it was “leftwing paranoia,” while leftists claimed it as an example of bold political art (okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration). Fast forward through a few more Presidents, though, and it seems like Bob Lee Swagger’s apolitical patriotism applies just as well whether the sitting President is a donkey or an elephant. Indeed, the script never reveals to which side the President or any of the evildoers belong. And that seems appropriate given that the system against which Swagger struggles is chock full of devils of all stripes, hopelessly greedy and narcissistic fiends who will bomb third-world villages to ensure their bank accounts are overflowing and never lose a wink of sleep.

And so this pyrotechnic sprawl of MacGyver’d IVs, pipe bombs, napalm, and tear gas shakes out a nihilistic political message: that the institutions with no ostensible purpose other than to serve the American people are in fact overrun by fallen men with evil plans; that there is no apparatus of justice to mete out punishment to whom it is due; that even a living weapon with a perfect action hero name like Bob Lee Swagger cannot hope to do more than rampage futilely and symbolically.

1. It should always be acceptable to make pedagogic entertainment because we live in a (somewhat, though gradually less and less) free country. Just don’t be surprised when audiences decide they’d rather not partake of movies that kowtow to the latest political trend to score brownie points in lieu of providing, you know, entertainment.