You know, you would think after working on a few films together, a director and actor would begin to form a strong bond—especially when they work on similar projects. Unfortunately, Mark Wahlberg, and director Peter Berg, who have come together on three previous projects, have had a total misfire with their fourth outing, Mile 22.
The film follows suit with Berg’s previous works with Wahlberg, digging deep into the lives of law enforcement, but this outing sheds light on the team to call in when all else fails. Wahlberg leads the group as James Silva, a highly intelligent and aggressive member of a secretive unit of the CIA. Silva clearly has issues. He is constantly berating and insulting anyone in front of him and rarely shows compassion towards his own teammates. All of these personality aspects easily make Silva the most confusing and unlikable Wahlberg character I’ve ever seen.
The head of Silva’s unit, Bishop (John Malkovich), describes him as bi-polar at one point and I definitely felt that way when watching him on-screen. On one hand, Wahlberg delivers some solid quips and sarcasm that only he can deliver and it’s what I usually love about him. On the other, his sarcasm and lack of compassion makes him impossible to root for.
Not to mention that his character has an odd trait of using a rubber band around his wrist to calm his thoughts. This becomes incredibly overdone and old really quickly and the camera cuts to Wahlberg snapping it so many times that I won’t be able to un-hear it for a couple of days. It’s only there to “calm him down,” but it never works and I just kept praying that it would stop at some point.
Berg also clearly knows that Wahlberg is his ace in the hole as other members including Malkovich, Lauren Cohan, and Ronda Rousey, each of whom I would say is pretty well-respected, are completely wasted. None of them are given any sort of character development and I was given no reason to care for them since Silva himself seemed to not care for them either.
The film attempts to have a tough tone, but has much more bark than bite. Often times, characters only display toughness through screaming and cursing at everyone in sight. This leads to more boring and calculated action scenes that don’t fit the characters’ more aggressive personas. I also felt that Wahlberg was outshined by Iko Uwais (who plays dangerous informant Li Noor) in the action department. Uwais lets loose in hand-to-hand combat, while Wahlberg is left just pulling a trigger. I will say Uwais fight sequences, though, constantly gave me headaches and made me a little nauseous due to the constant cuts made to make it seem fast-paced.
I did feel Mile 22 does stray a little bit farther from Berg’s previous works and that he clearly got a little more imaginative with this outing. The concept has very similar vibes of the video game Watch Dogs and plays into the Big Brother elements pretty well. Changing traffic light colors on the fly, seeing gun-toting enemies through infrared, and even blacking out entire complexes was nicely intercut with Wahlberg and crew’s perspective and leads to some well-choreographed military scenes.
Where I feel Mile 22 falls the flattest, though, is that it thinks its story is important and goes for the “gotcha” moment in the film’s finale. In Berg’s attempts to create a mind-blowing ending that inflicts shock and awe to me and the rest of audience, I was only reminded how mind-numbingly bored I was. Instead of feeling like the rug was successfully pulled out from under me, I felt absolutely nothing.
So, like Mile 22, I want to give out the options movie-goers have when tackling the always taxing situation of what they should see at theaters this weekend:
Option 1: Watch a movie that everyone’s talking about or that you haven’t seen.
Option 2: See that movie again.
Option 3: Go see Mile 22.
Rating: 3/10
Mile 22 is now playing in theaters nationwide.
-Tom Moore
