Thus spake erstwhile Guardian editor Peter Preston on BBC Radio Four's Front Row the other night. I wanted dismiss his comment as a well-worked journalistic cliche, but having seen the movie last night, he has it, err... bang to rights.
Mark Wahlberg does that blank-faced automaton Matt Damon thing pretty well, and there are some exciting moments, but I kept thinking: I've seen this movie...the plot is very like one of the Lee Child books (The Hard Way?) but actually comes from a Stephen Hunter novel I fear I may have read. How many films/books are there where the damaged veteran retreats to the American wilderness only to be called back for One Last Job? Best line has to be: "They shouldn't have shot my dog". I really liked the dog. It made me (briefly) miss the St Bernards.
Confusingly, unsteadily edited, with unexplained gaps and snippets that don't make any sense at all, the explosions and shootings just about carry it through. A natural for four-tins-in (all male) DVD sessions of a weekend.
Seeing the film was a classic Clydebank experience: Walk out of the house I'm staying in, five minutes to the Empire at the Clyde Shopping Centre, take in the 20.40 showing, then wander through the 24-hour ASDA, pick up some organic carrot juice and a Chicken Primavera ready meal (very good), not to mention a copy of the new William Boyd novel for three quid (!)walk back to the house, no mugging or hint thereof. All this AND the World's Only Sail Through Chip Shop!
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