It’s hard to classify Mile 22. On one hand, it’s an action movie starring an older yet prominent star, that is bound to impress the bloodthirsty Patriots who feed off of gore and violence. On the other hand, it’s a military mother’s tale of grace under extreme pressure and intense separation. Finally, it’s the story of a mysterious man with all the answers but no way out. Mile 22 is the story of his escape attempt and our involvement – or better yet – our non-involvement.
Wahlberg stars as James Silva, the…l et’s call him gifted, paramilitary operative who heads a highly coveted but never celebrated branch of the CIA that steps in to handle affairs too volatile for us to be associated with. His team is highly trained, objective driven, and insanely lethal. This is covert ops. This is ghost protocol at the highest level. Silva and his team are tasked with a 22-mile route to extract a high-value asset out of a country in Southeast Asia. They don’t know who he is or what his background may be, but they quickly find out he’s much more than a local cop.
Whole Team of Hitters
Iko ‘Never Lost A Fight Raid Rider’ Uwais entered this movie as nonchalant as can be. An assassination attempt later, Silva and the squad quickly realized that this cat is the most deadly mufucka in the western hemisphere! They have the confirmation that they needed and enact the much hyped and long desired Overwatch program. I say this without exaggerating. I found it baffling how often these military masters where salivating at the chance to unleash some unspeakable horror on fools who done fucked with the wrong agency. But back to Iko Uwais playing Li Noor, the unassuming local officer with one of the wildest backstories. One thing that Mile 22 did perfectly, was play the long game to reveal the truth behind his decision to voluntarily surrender with priceless information.
When I tell you, this man was the epitome of stealing the show, I sugarcoat nada. The assassination attempt, that is one of the few scenes accurately shown in the trailer, is the first eye-opening insight they have into how dangerous this man is and it all snowballs from there.
At any point in the movie, this man could be found breaking out of any handcuffed position, using every inanimate object imaginable to beat the living daylights out of a guaranteed-to-be-bodied sucker, slicing open necks with any available rigid edge and looking like a one-man weapon of mass destruction. The trek to get Li onto a plane headed for America is littered with bodies, many by his own hands. Booooooooooy are the hands something serious.
Lauren Cohen, aka don’t call me Maggie from The Walking Dead does a terrific job playing Alice Kerr, Silva’s right hand. She does an impressive job showing the duality of women in positions of military authority, while suffering through the agony of divorce and being an absent parent. She’s just, you know, ensuring that her daughter and millions of children across the world don’t suffer a terrorist attack that could wipe out the 6 biggest cities in the world in the blink of an eye.
While she crushes her role, I was put off by the fact that they felt the need to show her crying after damn near every conversation with her ex-husband. I get showing how vulnerable a woman this powerful can be reduced to, but I don’t buy the frequency of the tears. It relegates our lead actress to an unstable liability, when she was anything but by the time it was all said and done. Alice was on that try me and get clapped quick flow. I’d take a spin-off of her character’s rise through the CIA any day.
The rest of Silva’s team is comprised of Sam (Ronda Rousey), some guys without lines who hold guns, and a bunch of forgettable support agents who take orders from the Bishop, John Malkovich. His talents are wasted with simple, repetitive barking orders and a voiceover that gets old mighty fast. My favorite aspect of the movie might’ve been the seamless inclusion of women (including the adored, South Korean singer and rapper, CL), being that so many cis men are absolutely convinced that womenfolk can’t be generals, sergeants or covert ops commanders.
22 Miles of Murder and Deception
I think the perfect way to describe this movie, is put by director Peter Berg.
“I wasn’t going to direct this, Mark wasn’t going to act in this,” he tells EW. “But that changed when STX, the studio behind the film, wanted to go from a ‘low budget fight movie’ to a potential franchise.”
So basically they took Ronda Rousey and Iko Uwais, (two outstanding fighters with some acting chops) and a movie tailor-made for them, then threw Marky Mark in there and ramped up the budget to give it some star power. Why? To fill a few more seats and leave room to make a sequel or 4. That’s what’s wrong with Mile 22. The plot is very mediocre, fam.
Mark Wahlberg, the beast ass dude from The Raid and Maggie from Walking Dead basically remake the infamous Bruce Willis and Mos Def movie, 16 Blocks, but this time it’s a Southeast Asia diplomatic extraction of an asset movie with actors who know real martial arts! Cheesy, arrogant lines like Silva’s, “You’re chaos, but I think I might be worse.” just cause more eye rolls then they’re worth.
What’s worse is that Silva doesn’t do much of anything the entire movie. He’s a dick who gets a pass because that’s just who he is, and his genius won’t allow for any other approach to relationship building. The opening act is supposed to show you that he thinks so fast he has to snap that rubber band to slow his thoughts down, but his brain conveniently doesn’t work fast enough to figure out the movie’s main antagonist Axel, played by Sam Medina, and his goons are literally one step ahead of him in every single scene. Man, I expected better from an actor/director combo working on their fourth film together.
Did I enjoy the movie? Sure, but I’m also an on-screen carnage loving savage. Look, there are some good twists on the hour-long escape route, so if you enjoy an above average action ride you’ll probably walk out of this 90-minute shoot-em-up flick pretty pleased with your decision.
There’s even a behind the scenes puppet master angle that stirs up some genuine intrigue before the big reveal. Did I think the movie was good? Nah son. If you’ve had enough of the macho military movie that sacrifices plot and writing in exchange for excessive force to show the meek how mighty America can be when tasked with an insurmountable operation, then look elsewhere.
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