Reviews and More

As a lifelong fan of professional sports, I’ve learned that there are a couple of surefire ways to make each game more interesting. One thing you can do is play in a fantasy league. This will require you to keep track of players that you normally wouldn’t follow and to watch games that probably otherwise wouldn’t be on your viewing schedule. It’s definitely easier to become emotionally invested in these games when you’ve got something on the line — even if it’s just bragging rights among your buddies.

A second thing you can do to make sporting events more interesting is to put real money on the games. If you know what you’re doing (and have a little bit of luck on your side), you can make a nice profit from sport betting. Of course, you’ll also need to find a trustworthy sportsbook to place your bets with, something like Bet365.com.

Bet365.com offers a range of online betting facilities for those interested in sports betting, online poker, and other interactive games. Their sports betting encompasses everything from NFL games to greyhound racing, and allows you to choose from a variety of prop bets in addition to just a straight win-lose outcome. In addition, Bet365 uses a one-wallet system, which means it takes only one account for your to be able to enjoy all of their services.

I’ve been thinking that this would be a great time for me to jump in and put some money on the Bears. They’re not winning on the field, so I should take advantage of that fact and bet against them. I’ll probably clean up if I do!

If I had to name a favorite movie genre, I would go with Action. These types of film give me a chance to unwind, enjoy some cool fight or chase sequences, and just turn my brain off for a couple of hours. I don’t expect realism or even a decent plot out of action movies; I simply want to be entertained. So that was pretty much my mindset when I rented Shooter last weekend, and I wasn’t disappointed with the result.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Bob Lee Swagger (played by Mark Wahlberg) is a former Gunnery Sergeant with the Marines. While in the Corps, Swagger was a highly trained, highly skilled sniper capable of taking out targets from over a mile away. But during a mission in Ethiopia, things went terribly wrong and his commanding officer left him and his spotter behind. Swagger made it out; Donnie died on foreign soil. After that, Swagger left the Marines and retired to a remote cabin in the Wyoming wilderness.

One day, a man named Col. Johnson (Danny Glover), who appears to be from a government agency, pays a visit to Swagger’s cabin. Col. Johnson says that his intelligence team received word that there will be an attempt on the President’s life within two weeks. From what Col. Johnson knows, the attempt will be made during one of three Presidential speeches from a distance of a mile or so. The intelligence team doesn’t have anything else to go on, so they need Swagger to scout out three locations and tell them which one would be best suited to an assassination attempt.

At first Swagger wants nothing to do with the project. But once Col. Johnson appeals to Swagger’s sense of patriotism, the former Gunnery Sergeant agrees. He will travel to Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia to determine which site the shooter would be most likely to select.

After the scouting mission, Swagger again meets with Johnson to review his findings. Philadelphia is the only possible location, so Johnson should set up his men there. Johnson then convinces Swagger to be on hand during the Presidential speech to give even more advice when needed.

On the big day, Swagger goes through all the motions and tells Johnson exactly when the shot will be fired. Swagger is right on the money — but then he realizes that he’s been a patsy all along. Johnson’s team opens fire on him, planning to make him the fall guy for the shooting.

Swagger escapes, and the rest of the film then deals with his attempts to prove his innocence despite overwhelming evidence that he masterminded the whole thing.

My Reaction: I thought Shooter was a better than average action film (for the most part). I know that several of the plot points seemed rather far-fetched, but because the story as a whole was rather compelling, the minor issues didn’t bother me as much as they usually would have.

For instance, it was pretty ridiculous that Swagger was able to survive being shot twice at point-blank range, not to mention fall through a glass skylight, before running away at full speed, disarming an FBI agent, stealing a car, and leading cops on a high speed chase through Philly. Then he had time to stop at a car wash, patch himself up (only one wound, though — continuity error?), and then hightail it again, this time ending up in a river before swimming away unnoticed. Uh huh.

But once I got past rolling my eyes at that extended sequence, things picked up again. Mark Wahlberg is great in these types of roles, and he was pretty likable here as Swagger. I also thought Michael Peña was awesome as Nick Memphis. Together these two made a cool team for the movie, and I was definitely rooting for them throughout most of the film.

At first, I didn’t like the way Swagger turned out to be a cold-blooded killer in the end, but after thinking about the film for a while, I could see why things had to be that way. The Senator and Col. Johnson were Washington insiders, and there was no chance of them being brought to justice through regular channels. Swagger did what he had to do in order to be able to live with himself.

Overall, I thought Shooter was an engrossing action flick that kept me interested in the story and characters from start to finish. I give it 7.0 stars out of 10 and recommend that you check it out sometime!