Review of Mile 22 (2018) by Hector V — 22 Aug 2018

After a recent streak directing an unofficial trilogy (Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriots Day) of solid movies starring Mark Wahlberg, and a solid producing run on some even better films including Hell or High Water and Wind River, Peter Berg has once again hit a slump with his latest outing, Mile 22. Mile 22 is as generic as military action flicks come, down to John Malkovich's grayed out commando buzz cut. There are nuclear stakes at hand (courtesy of Russia, no less), and only a team of black ops soldiers with chips on their shoulders can handle the mission. And it's transpiring on foreign soil. And only a foreign soldier betraying his (corrupt) country can help them. And there's a timer running. And so on.

The film's got next to no personality apart from some decent characters played by a pretty good cast. The Walking Dead's Lauren Cohan likely has the most going on as a divorced mother yearning to see her daughter back home, and Mark Wahlberg has some good comedic moments erupting from his character's anger management problems. Apart from those two features, though, there's not much more to the film's two talented, but underwritten, mostly phoned in lead performances.

Iko Uwais could have been the film's standout star as Li Noor, the "package" being escorted by Wahlberg's team. A previous actor and choreographer on the amazing The Raid martial arts films, Uwais is the center of Mile 22's best (by default) action scene as he takes out numerous doctors with brutal, blood-spattered flips and kicks. Uwais is actually pretty compelling to watch away from the action too, and if afforded more screen time to develop as a character rather than be a literal silent package to be escorted, Mile 22 may have been able to win itself at least one redeemable feature.

But really, the film's heart lies in its action. Its messy, incomprehensible, gratuitously violent action. Most of Mile 22 is shot in close-quarters handheld shots, proper to its generic military feel, and it'd be unfair to fault that stylistic choice completely. Featuring shaky shots edited with reckless abandon between cuts, though, the film is a completely unintelligible, garbled mess of frenetic movements that starts giving one a headache only five minutes into the stale action style. And for a film that seems to lean towards this said style, the violence used to dispatch waves of countless enemy goons is disgustingly real and lacking in any sort of appeal or fun.

Mile 22 is barely watchable as the last choice for one's movie night out or at home. You'd be better off listening to "Good Vibrations" if you're looking for a helping of some Marky Mark action.