SNIPER 2

US, 2002, 91 minutes, Colour.
Tom Berenger, Bokeem Woodbine, Erika Marozsan, Tamas Puskas, Dan Butler.
Directed by Craig R. Baxley.

Sniper was a popular action film of the early 1990s, a star vehicle for Tom Berenger. He was supported by Billy Zane. The film was set in the Panama jungles (though filmed in north Queensland around Cairns). The film proved popular and eight years later there was a sequel. The first film was directed by Peruvian Luis Lossa (also director of Anaconda) and the second film was directed by Craig R. Baxley, an action director for many years including Action Jackson as well as the apocalyptic Left Behind 3. The sequel is set in Serbia, echoes of the Balkan war. The plot is virtually the same as the first film. Berenger is enticed out of retirement aged fifty, is given a partner, this time Bokeem Woodbine.

As in the first film, there is the search for drug lords in Panama and their elimination, so there is a search for a Serbian who is conducting ethnic cleansing. However, there is also a twist with a subplot, the assistant trying to get someone out of a Serbian prison.

The film was popular enough – especially on DVD and for television – that there was a third Sniper film with Berenger reprising his character. This time the film was directed by P.J. Pesce. The setting was more contemporary in Vietnam and Indochina.

The film is generally slam-bang action, skills for snipers, making audiences worry about American military authorities and the CIA and their covert operations in eliminating enemies. The films generally climax in a slam-bang shootout.

1. The popularity of the Sniper franchise? Recycling the basic plot in a new location?

2. The American settings, Beckett and his guiding hunters? Official offices, the transition to Serbia (and the fact that Hungarian locations were used – and Hungarian language spoken by the cast instead of Serbian)? The musical score?

3. Beckett, retirement, his criticism of the hunters? Eckles and Mc Kenna and their recruiting him? His decision to go back into action? Their offering him anything he wanted – and his knowing that this was a kind of suicide mission? His agreement? The discussions, the introduction to Cole? The discussions – and the rules of the mission?

4. The mission, the elimination of the Serbian officer, the reason given that he was ordering ethnic cleansing? Their going in, the sniper attack, getting out, the help of the Underground? The irony that Cole had a different mission – to help Beckett, to get arrested, to get arrested, to get into prison, to free Pavel and get him to the Americans? Beckett and his discovery of the alternate mission?

5. Beckett’s character, taciturn, skills, ageing, difficulty with his eyes? Protective of Cole? The shooting? The escape? The melodrama of driving the tram through the cars? Cole being arrested? The contact with Sophia and the Underground, her brothers? The set-up for rescuing Cole and Pavel? The escape from the town, trying to find the rendezvous? The helicopter? Their being pursued, the dangers?

6. Cole, in prison, his reading, knowledgeable? His attitude towards Beckett? Talking about the cathedral? Landing, in the church with Sophia? The assassination? The escape, the danger? His being arrested, tortured? The escape? With Pavel, talking, telling his story, the killings? His being wounded – the rescue and his death?

7. The Underground, Sophia as the contact, her brothers, in action, the ambush, the rescue of Cole and Pavel? The escape – the tanks, the brothers’ deaths?

8. Pavel, his importance, the escape? His story?

9. The action sequences, excitement? The body count? The final shootout? The escape?

10. The picture of American covert operations? Responsibilities? Loyalty and the carrying out of missions?