Mile 22 Review

R: For strong violence and language throughoutSTX Entertainment, Huayi Brothers1 Hr and 35 MinutesDir: Peter Berg | Writer: Lea CarpenterCast: Mark Wahlberg, John Malkovich, Lauren Cohan, Iko Uwais, Ronda Rousey, CL
James Silva is an operative of the CIA’s most highly-prized and least-understood unit. Aided by a top-secret tactical command team, Silva must retrieve and transport Li Noor, a valuable intelligence asset who holds life-threatening information, through 22 miles of hostile territory to reach an extraction point.THE GOODIn "Mile 22" the only character you resonate with is Li Noor played by Iko Uwais because he is the only person who isn’t dropping stupid dialogue, has a motivation, has a firm goal, and kicks all kinds of ass. He has a level of calmness unlike these impulsive asshole Americans we hve to root for in the film.
I kept writing in my notes “Wow, these sequences where Li is brutally murdering people are really cool. The violence is bloody and feels heavily influenced by ‘The Raid’”, but later on in the day it hit me: IKO UWAIS IS RAMA FROM “THE RAID”! Director Peter Berg even said “Oh, I made ‘Mile 22’ as an excuse to work with Iko because I love ‘The Raid.’”In retrospect, you could be better off watching "The Raid" again.As I said, Li is the only character you care about, mainly because he was the character that had you bobbing your head with each kill he commits. He delivers some brutal fatalities I’ve never seen before. There was one kill that caught me so off-guard, I was that one person in the screening room who yelled out:
THE BADPeter Berg has to be one of the most competently patriotic filmmakers working in Hollywood today. When I say “competently patriotic” I mean he has a clear stance on his love for America through his films, while they hold to be well-made narratives. In 2016 I applauded him for releasing two movies in the same time year (“Deepwater Horizon” and “Patriot’s Day”) and both of them being really good, in my opinion. Now, when it comes to being incompetently patriotic, then you have none other than Michael Bay.
I don’t know if some Freaky Friday shit happened to Peter Berg because “Mile 22” embodies all of the trappings of a Bay film, but somehow maintains Berg’s style. Oh crap. This is Peter Berg unleashed. The opening sequence lets you know right away that this is very much a Peter Berg film. It features all of the requirements: Violence, gore, guns, patriotic themes, people whose occupation involves some sort of national security, Marky Mark, and John Malkovich. Seriously, if you thought “Patriot’s Day” was Berg’s political stance, “Mile 22” continues that conversation as he channels his inner Michael Bay, and it is not good.For starters, let’s talk about the movie’s editing. One of the major aspects I cannot stand about “Mile 22” is the editing, for the shot composition is terrible. The film is composed of nothing but fast cuts that are filmed from various angles (if not every shot imaginable) but no shot lasts five seconds. I tried counting and each shot is disrupted by a quick cut. No shot has any room to breathe which makes it incredibly exhausting to follow the film. It makes you question if any scene had a master shot, which is the first shot a filmmaker must shoot when starting a scene before he gets to the coverage shots. This movie is comprised of nothing but coverage shots.
Barely any scene carefully plays out because they’re constantly cutting back and forth between the three different locations the film takes place at and often times it would be mid-sentence. The way this movie is spliced together feels less like a movie and more like the longest commercial for the CIA ever created. This has the same flow as “Speed Racer”... not the Wachowski sisters’ movie, but the show from the 60s where characters talk so fast that a constant cut occurs at the end of each sentence.As I said earlier, the action sequences are well choreographed, gloriously violent, and really cool when it mostly focuses on Li, but those are undercut by the fact that the editing is all over the place. You don’t get a full, clear vision of the action whenever Uwais is kicking ass, which adds to the list of reasons why it’s much more beneficial to rewatch “The Raid” instead.
It really is disappointing that this is such a drastic shift in film quality for Berg. Where his previous films had well-developed characters who felt human, here you get character types who are all mean-spirited, aggressive, and mentally unstable... because THEY’RE AMERICAN, primarily Mark Wahlberg's character, Jimmy. Everyone here has an attitude problem. They argue with each other, with their families, their bosses, and everyone they encounter. All of these characters are unlikable and the performers are all over-the-top as well.When it comes to Mark Wahlberg, what he’s known for best is his knack of talking so fast that when he does, it’s usually often humorous. It’s not in this. The stuff he says is just stupid. What makes it worse is that his character is autistic. Not as a joke, but Jimmy has some violent tendencies and a rubber band around his wrist that he keeps slapping his hand with in nearly every scene that you can make a shot a game out of it. You know that he’s autistic and you question, “WHY THE FUCK DID YOU HIRE HIM TO DO THIS COVERT OPERATION MISSION?!” He is clearly mentally unstable. It can’t be because of his skills because they’re not all that great. Honestly, others can do it better.
You can tell there were good intentions, especially as a means to give Jimmy a bit of a character arc, but he’s just a one-note cocky asshole, so there's no attachment to his character. Then there is his main sidekick Alice played by Lauren Cohan who is often constantly cursing and is pretty much the female version of Jimmy, minus the autism, but still has the aggression.While I’m out here criticizing the editing, the characters, and Berg’s direction, the true criminal of this movie is the screenwriter. Lea Carpenter. This has to be one of the worst screenplays I’ve witnessed in a movie in a long ass time. Many cringed during “Eighth Grade” because of its accuracy of the titular era of life and the script being so on-the-nose. This, on the other hand, has you cringing nonstop because of the abundance of bad dialogue where characters say the most nonsensical things that nobody would ever say... and of course most of it comes from Wahlberg.As a matter of fact, nearly something everyone says is outrageously stupid that makes you cringe and question:
Because of this, when a character kicks the bucket as the film delves into a lesser version of “Lone Survivor” structure-wise, you feel absolutely nothing for them. The entire movie is devoid of tension because of the problematic post-production and the aggressive characters. Then, the film wants you to feel bad when characters do die, for they do it in a glorious and patriotic manner. Yet, since you’re stuck with unlikable people, you end up playing the world’s tiniest violin.
LAST STATEMENTDespite Uwais raiding the screen and stealing many scenes with his badass moves, “Mile 22” is openly mean-spirited, terribly edited, and badly written. This results in a poorly-crafted action-thriller that has the audacity to set itself up with a sequel that I doubt will happen.Rating: 1.5/5 | 37%Super Scene: Li’s car window fatality.