A marksman living in exile is coaxed back into action after learning of a plot to kill the president. Ultimately double-crossed and framed for the attempt, he goes on the run to track the real killer and find out who exactly set him up, and why??
Ballistic fetishists and anticorporate activists will find common ground in each violent act against political fat cats, but the rest of us are left to wallow in the bloodlust and wonder who switched the reels.
– David Fear,
Time Out New York,
24 Mar 2007
rotten:
It's one of those conspiracy thrillers that keeps on asking you to take a leap of faith, until you get tired of leaping and you just start laughing in all the wrong places.
– Richard Roeper,
Ebert & Roeper,
26 Mar 2007
rotten:
The engaging, fast-talking idiosyncrasy of [Wahlberg's] performance in The Departed has vanished.
– David Denby,
New Yorker,
26 Mar 2007
fresh:
This is the first big-studio action picture (the director is Antoine Fuqua) with some of the disgusted, bloody nihilism of the post-Vietnam era.
– David Edelstein,
New York Magazine/Vulture,
26 Mar 2007
rotten:
The film's weird, thin politics become harder to swallow as it lurches from set-up to set-up.