Remember the 1993 film Sniper, starring Tom Berenger and Billy Zane? If you do, you’re not alone. Though the original theatrical release grossed a little more than the same year’s Untamed Heart and a little less than Another Stakeout, it inspired a long-running series of direct-to-video action movies, with Berenger eventually passing the sniper’s rival off to Chad Michael Collins, playing the Berenger character’s son. (Berenger has popped up a few times since.) The eleventh and newest installment has just hit Netflix. Is it worth checking out for action enthusiasts?
The Gist: Brandon Beckett (Chad Michael Collins) was last seen with a team abbreviated G.R.I.T. : Global Response & Intelligence Team. But for his latest Sniper mission, he and longtime pal Zeke “Zero” Rosenberg (Ryan Robbins) are dispatched to lead a new team into the fictional Costa Verde and take out an arms dealer in possession of a massively deadly new weapon. The first half of the movie mostly involves introducing and training the team, as Brandon adjusts to a more leadership-forward position and mentors a less experienced sniper. But during the actual mission, Brandon and company find themselves suddenly and unexpectedly outnumbered, and must fight their way through a militia siege while escaping with targeted intelligence.
What Will It Remind You Of?: Sniper: The Last Stand brings to mind any number of military-team-on-a-mission movies, but its final 40 minutes or so, where it becomes a defensive-siege picture, recall stuff like Assault on Precinct 13 or The Raid (though not on that action-classic level).
Performance Worth Watching: Action-hero performances are more about physical feats than emoting, and on that level, Sharon Taylor, playing team member Hera, is a major highlight here, for a fight scene where she takes on half a dozen attackers brandishing axes and other implements.
Sex and Skin: There could scarcely be less skin, let alone sex. That is not the sniper way.
Memorable Dialogue: DTV action movies aren’t known for their repartee, but there’s an amusing scene where the team members share their “walk-out” music to get them psyched for a mission. Spoiler: Someone is a Swiftie.
Our Take: Look, by the time a series reaches its eleventh entry, anyone interested in sampling it probably know whether or not it’s for you, and anyone looking to really give Sniper a go is probably not going to start here. On the other hand, the movie does represent a relatively fresh start for the Chad Michael Collins character; he and Robbins are the two major recurring cast members here, and it’s not too tricky to suss out their whole deal, because this series may be complicated in number of entries and missions, but it’s not exactly emotionally impenetrable: Brandon and Zero are very good at killing bad guys in off-books missions (and also, in this movie, they’re also good at justifying killing to their team members who might waver over whether all of this is worthwhile). Their new team is a nicely diverse mix of nationalities and genders; it’s a nice break from the white-military-dude orthodoxy you might expect from this sort of movie, and gives the cast a more eclectic, memorable quality, even if their actual characters aren’t especially detailed.
The real question, then, is this: How does Sniper: The Last Stand deliver as stand-alone action movie? The answer is both pretty well in terms of standing alone, and moderately OK as an action movie. The film is impressively backloaded; there’s a little bit of action stuff early on, but it saves most of the fireworks for a sustained siege climax. This final stand depends on a plot turn that is both surprising and frustrating, because it renders a lot of the movie’s first hour of team-building sort of irrelevant. But in terms of action-movie logistics, with six well-trained team members taking on a whole mess of enemy militia soldiers, it’s a reliably exciting formula, giving the characters their own mini-battles to fight against stacked odds. On the other hand, there are a lot of action movies with 20 to 30 minutes of kickass fighting and an hour-plus of semi-shrugworthy connective tissue; in the past month alone, we’ve gotten Havoc on Netflix and Fight or Flight in theaters, both of which are nuttier than this one, and with some actual movie stars at the center. That’s not necessarily a fair comparison point; Sniper: The Last Stand isn’t bad for what it’s trying to do. But what it’s trying to do isn’t ultimately that enticing if you haven’t watched ten previous Sniper movies and are therefore potentially excited for more.
Our Call: If you’re a Sniper fan, or a newcomer just looking to sample a sniper-centric 95-minute military action picture, by all means, this one is fine. But if you’re not predisposed to like this sort of thing, there are a lot of other action movies out there and you can safely SKIP IT.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.
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