Movie Report: The Marksman (2005)

Book coverI picked this film up not long after I watched The Art of War with Wesley Snipes a couple of weeks ago. Like that film, this DVD was a little deeper in the archives–meaning I did not buy it this year–but I figured that I would not be quite so primed to watch a Snipes film, especially an obscure Snipes film, as I would be right after another Snipes film. Well, this is the third in relatively short succession as I did watch Demolition Man recently even though I did not report on it–because when I ordered it, it came as part of a four-pack of Sylvester Stallone films, and I didn’t move it to the review staging area because the set has three more films in it. Sorry, I have let you down.

Also, I guess this means that I am on a Sylvester Stallone kick since I also recently watched The Expendables. But that’s neither here nor there.

So: Wesley Snipes plays Painter, a spotter who identifies targets for precision bombing. He proves how good he is in an exercise, but he has a dark past: He mistakenly “painted” the wrong target, leading to his support team getting killed. He’s drawn into a mission to identify a decommissioned nuclear plant in Chechnya before terrorists can re-start the nuclear reaction and blow it up, creating devastation and killing hundreds of thousands. However, it becomes clear that some sort of double-cross has occurred, and it’s the American missiles that will destroy the already reactivated power plant. So it’s a race against time to rescue what scientists he and his team can and to rectify the errors–and he’s not sure whom he can trust from above.

So a better film than The Art of War, although in 2005, the Russians, or certain hardline elements of the Russians, were the bad guys, some where good guys I guess? Then, as now, the internal politics and policy goals of a foreign people are difficult to ascertain. The movie itself plays a lot like a good direct to cable movie or a B movie would have been back in the day. Better than, say, Hell Comes To Frogtown or Warlords, with a bigger budget, but the Internet says they recycled some film from higher budget spectacles outside the generic military-in-the-industrial-facility scenes.

Still, not bad.

Also, it has an older (but younger than I am now) Emma Samms as a, um, psychologist/handler/love interest for the Wesley Snipes character.

I think I first saw Emma Samms in General Hospital, and I know I watched her in The Colbys because 1) my mother watched General Hospital when we were young in the projects, and 2) I was into Dynasty because my godfather uncle and godmother aunt were into Dallas. Maybe they also liked Dynasty. Either way, I watched it when I could.




She would have been in her early 20s in the middle 1980s and 44 when this film came out. And she has aged very well.

I mean, if they rebooted Murder, She Wrote with Emma Samms as Jessica Fletcher, I might watch it. Well, no, probably not, as I don’t watch current television and am only catching up on my early 2000s films now. But Angela Landsbury was a dish in her day, and Emma Samms is a dish any day.

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