Shooter, the movie, contains spoilers

It's hard to figure out which target audience Shooter is directed at. A movie filled with senseless violence and gratuitous killing, it is at the same time a far left conspiracy flick.

Highly melodramatic, it uses as a plot device, the JFK conspiracy as if it were true. The plot involves a new conspiracy though, involving, naturally, evil oil men. Danny Glover squeaks menacingly through his strained vocal cords and Ned Beatty, getting back at his redneck torturers from Deliverance by acting as a sterotypical redfaced redneck himself. He even gets a chance to let out a sooey type hoot. Only this redneck kills Africans instead of African-Americans.

Elias Koteas is a brutal sadistic hired gun for Danny and Ned and he has the really juicy part. He gets to kidnap and threaten Mark Wahlburg's girl, a la silent films from the 1920's. He ties her up, but he doesn't put her on the railroad tracks. Elias, Ned and Danny should have had long mustaches to twirl and stroke. You wanted to boo and hiss every time they came on screen.

Of course the moral of the story is, oil men are evil, the US government is evil and will stop at nothing to obtain light sweet crude, they will even slaughter entire villages of African people to get it. There are a few mentions of the Iraq war, as in, it's for oil and it's bad. The references to the President are aimed at Bush and his evil ways, baby.

Now I am not sure that most left wingers would be interested in a movie with a US military trained crack "sniper" as a main character, or in a movie filled with so much mindless violence. The left loves their torture scenes tis true, but they prefer them wrapped up in a lot of "character development." None of the political references drew any applause or even sympathetis grunts from the audience. The only grunts and mutters we heard were about the actress who played Marky Mark's love interest as she was disturbingly pretty and wore skimpy clothes.

The theatre showed 3 previews before Shooter and all 3 movies had a scene with a flying car crash stunt that looked identical to the ones before and after it.