Shooter

Antoine Fuqua’s 2007 film adapts Point of Impact, the 1993 novel that introduced Bob Lee Swagger. Its author, Stephen Hunter, was then chief film critic of The Washington Post and won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Screenwriter Jonathan Lemkin moved the story off the book’s post-Vietnam footing, pulled the central event forward to the close of the first act, and cut the novel’s plot lines to the main one. That reshaping decides everything: the frame-up is settled early and the rest is flight, not investigation. The marksmanship is the researched part. Former Marine scout sniper Patrick Garrity, the technical advisor, built a two-day course for Mark Wahlberg covering wind reading, breathing, rapid bolt work and ghillie suits, with practice out to 1,100 yards, roughly 1,000 metres. Wahlberg is left-handed and learned to fire from either shoulder, since Swagger keeps switching sides as his injuries pile up. The glacier finale was shot near Whistler, the Philadelphia scenes at Independence National Historical Park. A television version followed in 2016 and ran three seasons, with Ryan Phillippe as Swagger. A good fit if you sit down knowing the conspiracy will not be unpicked and treat range, wind and bolt work as the main event. Not for anyone who wants the institutions built with the same care as the shooting.