Sharpshooter (2007 TV Movie) User Reviews

Solid action, but tries(and fails) to be a crime thriller too

[Seagalogist · 6/10 · 10 October 2007]

For a TV movie, this isn't at all bad. I thought the opening was excellent and the back story of the lead feasible and solid. I only browsed through the channels and came upon this. I read the synopsis and it seemed to be a cheesy shoot 'em up style movie which I am a huge fan of (eg - Seagal, Bosworth etc.). If you are into movies like those, then watch this if you can catch it on TV. Its solid and the performances aren't half bad. I thought that it went a little bit by the numbers in its plot, and I also have to criticise the slow middle section of the movie where action is sacrificed of espionage. One can see that they creators are trying to make a credible movie so they can be forgiven for that.

Also have to mention Mario Van Peebles especially. He is a great underrated actor. Great performance by him.

Overall, it's a good solid watch, but no classic.

what the...

[mkruis1 · 4/10 · 28 January 2008]

saw this movie on spike last night, action was pretty sub-par and pretty ridiculous (throwing a guy 10 feet when he is on the boat and the main character is fully submerged in water and when he gets shot he doesn't even limp until 20 minutes of running through the forest) i can deal with all of that because the movie obviously was garbage but the ending really bugged me the most. he could have split the money with flick (i think thats his name) but he said no because it wasn't right so then flick tried killing him for 45 minutes. then after flick was no longer a problem he just keeps the money and flies off with the chick that betrayed him. WHAT THE F**K?! i kept thinking "this cant happen, that is totally against the character of the guy" but maybe the writer wasn't creative enough to tie up that loose end in a way that actually made any sense. he was thinking about shooting her but then he decided to fly off to some island and keep the money. if the end was true to the character, he would have at least taken the girl in, turned in the money. the sheriff new he was a good guy so everything would have worked out perfectly.

"Stamp collecting might be right up your alley"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 4/10 · 22 October 2021]

An assassin called Dillon who wants to retire agrees to do another job. One of many films where a professional sniper/agent/soldier etc wants to give their work up but something draws them back to performing one last job. What stands out in this film amidst those many films? Nothing really. The plot is predictable as a metronome. The voiceover narrative from the start soon gets boring. It also wastes a good cast in James Remar, Mario Van Peebles, and Bruce Boxleitner. The chief villain Richard Phillips punches people a lot but is fearsome as a bluebell. The ending of the film is rather disappointing and doesn't really make sense. Dillon is just as bad as the other greedy people in the film even though the film tries to make him out as some kind of hero. Underwhelming.

Totally agree with harisdd on this

[noxidm · 2/10 · 16 April 2008]

When I picked up this movie from the video store I thought it would be similar to one of my favorite movies of all time, Shooter starring Mark Wahlberg, I was wrong. This film never got interesting. It was like a bad porn movie without all the sex and nudity. The whole storyline was awful. The sound was horrible; I was forever turning the volume up because I couldn't hear it then turning it down because it got too loud. I was tempted to turn it off many times during the movie but decided to watch to see if it got any better, which it didn't. I would not recommend watching this; there are far better movies out there. I was generous in giving this movie 2 out of 10.

very bad movie

[harisdd · 1/10 · 9 April 2008]

I've seen only a long time ago such a bad, full of clichés movie. In fact I registered here only to be able to post that opinion. I couldn't even watch the movie until the end, it's so bad. Bad actor (totally unnatural), bad landscapes, bad gear (rifles and so on), tons of clichés (like jumping on the top of the car, to get the bad guys which are driving it or the agent. In other words, a movie made with really low budget. If you are able to push another button on the remote, do it, even if there are only news channels available. Even watching a boring stuff like "mating rituals in the bug world" would be a better alternative to this. Besides that, as outlined on this page, there are lots of mistakes which can be observed also but people which are not hunting them (I usually don't observe the mistakes). For example the point when Phillips is making the deal and the agent is caught: after catching him (it's dark night), beating him (still night) he is brought outside, to be killed (sunshine). My first impression was that the action continued next day, until I realized that the bad guy returned to the room where the deal was as if he returned after half of hour.

Rubbish

[pasany · 2/10 · 26 February 2013]

Note: even though I added a spoiler warning I think I won't spoil anything because the whole story is so predictable!

This is total rubbish both in plot and in action. Either the writers were morons or they thought the audience will be morons (or maybe both). To begin with they mistook a spec ops agent for a hit-man: a hit-man might works alone, may collects enemies (of course only if someone finds out his identity!) and probably has a hard time retiring because of the said enemies and lack of friends. A special agent however is very unlikely to work alone, has more friends than enemies (the agency has his back) and so he can retire without fearing of getting assassinated. Also they might assassinate a foreign terrorist arms dealer on foreign soil, but they won't do that to their own citizen in their homeland - they have the police to arrest such people! (And if they decide to assassinate the delinquent anyway they would just send a frickin' drone - after all, drone warfare is legal even against American citizens in American soil!) As for the actions, they didn't do the slightest effort to make them the least bit believable! Even the very first scene is bull****: a single sniper to rescue a hostage from about 8 thugs in two vehicles! Even if they were really that incompetent that they can't fight back or escape, any of them could have killed the hostage as a last resort! Then there came those kind of action scenes I hate the most: getting the protagonist in a 200% certain death situation and then making him beat the odds - by plot holes, previously nonexistent superhuman capabilities and making the enemies doing blatant mistakes! From about the middle of the film it's full of these! (Escapeing in the boathouse, when his hands, tied in the back suddenly get tied in the front so he can cut the rope; clinging on the top of the escaping car and not getting shot nor falling, running with a shot leg like it was healthy, etc.) For me the most over the top was when Dillon, having run out of ammo (despite shooting very few times with that rifle!) turns his rifle into a bow and carves an arrow (with a f*ckin' stone!) in less than one minute and shoots the final boss in the heart from pretty far with dead accuracy, even though that "arrow" didn't even have feathers, it was just a pointed wooden rod! There are also some random stupid moments, like when the protagonist hesitates to kill his target despite doing that job for 20 years, just so that his target can mock him in a final line. And the worst part was an absolute stupid and unnecessary twist (it's real purpose is probably so that the movie can get longer), in which Dillon's friend suddenly turns evil - by wanting to quit and keep a large pile of money. And he also turns mean, to make sure the audience won't like him anymore! And he does that the cheapest way: by hitting his female colleague for no real reason! (The only cheaper thing would have been if he kicked a puppy!) What makes this stupid twist so outrageous is that Dillon, like a knight of honor refuses the offer to split the money and get away, which of course brakes out a new conflict, but in the end, after killing his old colleagues (and only friends), he keeps the loot anyway and escapes with the last survivor of the opposing band (the chick whom the "new bad guy" have hit).

giving it five for being another sniper movie and not too boring

[CasualView · 5/10 · 7 August 2008]

in fact whole movie is 100% "plot hole" - guards without cartridges in their weapon, sniper with a rifle running from the man with a gun and unable to return fire, jumping from underwater in a split second, immediately trusting betrayal-lady upon her statement she is "glad to see you"... Shuddering like from toothache when recall them, but since there are some popularity of "sniper invisible avenger" movies and James Remar isn't any worse than Tom Berenger (just needs better script and director) I'd give this move rate five and could recommend to leave it somewhere in DVD stack for one-time watching on rainy boring evening. If you like sniper movies of course, otherwise it's just loss of time.

It delivers absolutely nothing new to the One Last Mission genre,

[tarbosh22000 · 4/10 · 24 February 2022]

Dillon (Remar) is a professional assassin. After a lifetime of traveling around the world killing people for the CIA, he finally wants to hang up his sniper rifle and retire. But, wouldn't you just know it, he's convinced to do the classic and time-honored "One Last Job". Flick (Van Peebles), his boss, convinces him to travel to Julian, California, a rural fishing village. It's there he's supposed to pose as a Los Angeles lawyer just out to get some "R n' R". However, his true mission is to assassinate an evil baddie named Richard Phillips (Sapienza).

Of course, Phillips has a large mansion and a respectable amount of goons at his disposal. As Dillon is figuring out his mission, he meets a magazine writer named Amy (Stewart), as well as Sheriff Graham (Boxleitner), the law in that small town. However, as you might expect, after some double-crosses, back-stabs, and general intrigue, the hunter becomes the hunted and now Dillon has to use his lifetime of survival and killing skills to defend himself against the organization that trained him and that he's worked for for years: the U. S. government. Can he do it? Will he live to be the ultimate SHARPSHOOTER?

Sharpshooter is a made-for-cable outing that should have been much better than it is, based on the people involved. Not only does it feature fan favorites Remar - last seen around these parts with Quiet Cool (1986) - and Mario Van Peebles, it also has Boxleitner and two other people with 80's cult pedigrees - Catherine Mary Stewart from The Apple (1980) and Night of the Comet (1984), and it was directed by Armand Mastroianni of He Knows You're Alone (1980) fame. There's even a small part from Lee Reherman as Ziggy (of course his name is Ziggy) - the guy from Champions (1997) who looks like David Letterman and has a similar name.

So you'd think, with all that talent involved, the end product would be something other than the standard fare that we get. It has many, many cliches that we're all used to seeing by now: One Last Mission, the baddie mansion, Prerequisite Torture, the double-crosses, etc. Remar is good as always and his narration adds something, but it's not enough. It slows down a lot around the mid-point and never really recovers. There's also some very silly green screen during a chase sequence that did not need to be there. It didn't help matters.

It's not that the movie overall is bad, but it's nothing you haven't seen before, and done better elsewhere. There's not a lot of reason to go out of your way to seek out Sharpshooter. It seems like the brief given to Mastroianni was to make a telefilm version of Sniper (1993) mixed with Shooter (2007), and give it a similar title. As we said before, Remar, Stewart, Van Peebles, and Boxleitner are all fine in the film and none of this is their fault, but there's not a lot for the audience to hang on to. We were never given the red meat that we want. It's just a movie on a screen.

As much as we'd like to, we can't really recommend Sharpshooter. It delivers absolutely nothing new to the One Last Mission genre, which really is a genre unto itself at this point. Unless you're a completist as far as any of the talent involved goes, we can safely say you're not missing out on much if you never see it.

They should rename it "Dullshooter".

" The List of people who want me dead, just got longer "

[thinker1691 · 7/10 · 6 September 2010]

The first time James Remar ever became notable to audiences was in the cult classic 'The Warriors' which I believe will be difficult for Remar to top. Still his list of accomplishments keeps growing and becoming more impressive. This film for instance is called " Sharpshooter. " It tells the story of a U.S. Soldier named Dillon (James Remar) who after a twenty year career as a specialist Marksman has had enough and decides to retire. Seeking to find a place where Peace is the by-product, he tells his bosses, this was the last mission and says good-by. However, Flick, (Mario Van Peebles) his partner on many of the previous missions, pleads for him to stay for one last mission, to which Dillon, acquiesces. The mission itself is simple, take out one last terrorist, but which suddenly become mysterious and complicated. The movie is well done in that it exercises the talents of Van Peebles and enhances the role for Remar as he plays the good-guy a role he does not often get. With Catherine Mary Steward and Bruce Boxleitner in supporting roles, the cast does it's best to achieve a winning combination. The acting is a bit strained, the dialog, stiff and the final resolution is murky. Still it's one of Remar's better films and I will expect this one to go into his vault of memories. ****

Watch it only if you're a fangirl...

[HerbalMoon · 8/10 · 4 March 2010]

The plot of this movie does nothing for me...it's entirely too predictable. Sniper hates job. Sniper takes one last assignment before retirement. Handler turns on Sniper at the end. Can you GET anymore cookie-cutter? Definitely one of those movies I finish and think, "This could have been SO much better if I'd written it!" (Sadly, the last time I finished this, I burst out laughing. NOT what I want to be doing at the end of a James Remar movie!) That being said, "Sharpshooter" does not get 8/10 stars...REMAR does. I'm a rabid fangirl. I find James Remar driving a black Charger and waving around an assault rifle absolutely hot. The movie itself only receives two stars...and that might be pushing it.

Not bad for a small film

[rc_whipps · 7/10 · 11 October 2007]

This is a good film in a made for TV sort of way. James Remar plays the sharp shooter of the title and is very good in his role as the ex army man doing his job for the country. The action is good and the bad guys are OK if a bit boring. The film was made in Canada which makes a change from the same old shots of east Europe. Maro van pebbles pops up for a bit and may not be who he seems ? Bruce boxlter is only in the film for a little bit and was wasted in a small role just to get his name on the film as well. The Direction was good and the action was well handled with a bit of blood and some good deaths. Over all a good film and step up for this company of late as some of there other films have been very bad. You should keep an eye on the director as he has done well here and may well go on to better things.

I must be easy to please.

[steven-a-fletcher · 7/10 · 26 April 2020]

I probably am, and I don't like hard to understand plot lines so all fine here. Some well known faces, and as a TV movie is good if not great, and a bit too violent at times. Some good elements and props ok, also some good Dodge motors.

not bad and no very good

[avu-38927 · 8/10 · 30 March 2022]

It's not great but it's not bad, it's tight, it's tense, it's a plus. The disadvantage is that some points are not particularly clear. It's still worth a look.

It's like Shooter, but...

[chevymangreg1989 · 7/10 · 25 September 2008]

I got an idea for a movie, like Shooter, but... instead of Marky Mark we get an older dude that doesn't do many movies anymore, and instead of him being the target of the FBI, we make him the target of the CIA. What do you think?

That's what I thought the whole time while watching this movie. Not much action unless you count the first two minutes and the last action sequence. Late night SpikeTV movie for a reason. Production was good, Filmography wasn't great by any means, and the action wasn't spectacular. The actors didn't seem into this movie at all. I am happy that I only saw it once and don't see it in my program guide now.