Mile 22

This review may contain spoilers!

You put Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg together and you get cinematic magic almost every time. I would give Mile 22 an 8.5/10.

This is really leading the charge as one of the strongest thrillers I've seen so far this year; every time I thought I could expect a direction the narrative would take I would be pleasantly surprised by a well-established twist. The strength of a film like this is how solidly recognisable it is: a gritty glimpse into an American black ops team and the missions they run on foreign and domestic soil. At first, this team seems bulletproof, cool and clear-cut American heroes, albeit a few moral grey areas here and there. Yet as they embark upon the mission this film centres around we see that even the best stumble; even as some of the heroes fall we hold onto hope and the ending this feature provides is nothing short of exemplary. The cinematography really plays around with different angles and shots to construct a very chaotic picture, you see moments of a scene from views you would never have dreamed of with daring framing to top it off. The editing complements this sense of deliberate chaos, cutting at an unpredictable pace and setting some transitions that really move the action forward perfectly. The score for the feature is akin to something out of a modern wasteland, a hollow bass that rings out over the action and emboldens the melancholy scenes most of all.

Lauren Cohan, who played Alice Kerr, is an extremely violent and foul-mouthed operative; Cohan's great strength is she shows her role's deep connection to others so strongly, no other performer shows such great on-screen chemistry with the wide range of cast members outside of Wahlberg. John Malkovich, who played Bishop, comes into this film as an almost relaxed 'holier-than-thou' eye in the sky; Malkovich takes a character who wields supreme tactical power and grounds them, making them a likeable role we connect with almost instantly. Ronda Rousey, who played Sam Snow, is a performance I feel is going to surprise a lot of people; Rousey certainly plays a soldier who is comparable to a sledgehammer but more significantly the way she portrays a fear of death in her final scenes is one of the better moments in the entire feature. Sam Medina, who played Axel, is a brilliant antagonist set against the protagonist in this film; Medina has an entertaining way of playing of Wahlberg that makes their scenes together extremely intense.

However, the best performance came from Mark Wahlberg, who played James Silva. Wahlberg has just been outdoing himself with his roles in most films in the past few years but this one is certainly his stand out performance for 2018. The character of Silva has a stony, eerily calm approach to combat and conflict when first he's introduced; this is the stone cold American soldier we've seen in films before. Yet Wahlberg flips that perception on us almost immediately, unveiling a frantic operator whose thoughts race at a million miles a minute and whose every line drips with exasperation. This wouldn't be a Wahlberg role if the character wasn't capable of great displays of wit, showing a comradely sense of humour with his team. Silva is a menacing, intimidating protagonist; and when all is said and done Wahlberg takes this stone cold role and shows the compassion within as he diverts from the mission to save Cohan's role, Alice. A brilliant character and performance, one I would watch again and again.

The film follows a pretty simple formula which isn't surprising but does make this a little simple to watch in places. The entire premise being to move from point A to point B means that we can see how the plot has to start and end can fairly accurately reason out where issues may arise along the way. Furthermore, the final minutes of the film take away from what could have a very powerful ending by teasing more to come, the result isn't as poignant because we are teased that the battle isn't done; a message which seems counterintuitive to how events have played out.

Iko Uwais, who played Li Noor, is a significantly important plot point but a rather boring character to watch; Uwais doesn't show this character to be anything other than a bag of cool looking fighting tricks and minimal substance. Carlo Alban, who played William Douglas III, is the weak link of the main black ops team; his place in the team is never really explored and Alban feels tacked on to make up numbers. Natasha Goubskaya and Nikolai Nikolaeff, who played Vera and Aleksander respectively, are important as the main antagonists but don't have a lot of presence in the film; these are roles you would forget if the film didn't clip in their faces every fifteen or so minutes. Terry Kinney, who played Johnny Porter, is one of the drier political roles; Kinney doesn't really hold his own in the aggressive scenes he shares with Wahlberg, making for a rather impotent role.