Sniper: The Last Stand

Until I looked this movie up I had no idea that the underwhelming 1993 Tom Berenger/Billy Zane movie 'Sniper' had 10 direct-to-video sequels. This is the 10th. I haven't seen any of the intervening movies and I may have missed some references and callbacks. Fortunately for me the dialogue is a combination of rah-rah trailer lines and exposition dumps so I had no problem following along.

Elite ex-Marine sniper Chaz Michael Michaels joins the world's most diverse special-ops squad to take down Imhotep and free the people of Costa Verde, who are downtrodden because their country exists in the shadow of its dynamic big-budget neighbor Val Verde. Imhotep has devised a weapon which causes the same concussive damage to human tissue as a grenade - except it requires databanks of servers, it's effective to a shorter range and it works 10,000% more slowly. Diabolical!

To keep this deadly new weapon of minor destruction from falling into the wrong hands, Chaz and his friends must fight off the private army of the commie fascist dictator of Costa Verde, which is also conspicuously diverse and includes a whiter-than-Icelandic woman with an eyepatch. Some might call this immersion-breaking; but if you think about it, a commie fascist dictator is about the most likely person to insist on DEI hiring policies in his private army.

This movie is an unapologetically corny slice of low-budget 1980s-style action cheese. It's refreshing in its simplicity, its clunky optimism, its straightforward morality and its violent action. Turn your brain off and just have fun with it.

Sniper Brandon Beckett (Chad Michael Collins) and Agent Zero (Ryan Robbins) are part of a group of elite international soldiers sent to Costa Verde to stop an arms dealer with a superweapon. This opens with a fine action section with the group attacking the final boss. The villain activates his superweapon which throws everyone back. Then the movie goes 48 hours earlier and the audience has to wait. It is a lot of introductions and preparations and training. Very little of it is compelling. The movie loses any pace it had earlier. I do like the Canadian axe fighters for all the old fashion action cheese. The middle is so boring that I would suggest the fast forward button.

The movie starts slow, but the last 45 minutes of action make the film worth a watch and a decent addition to the Sniper series of movies. The action set pieces are beautifully worked and are fun to watch. The cast does a decent job overall on the combat scenes and handling the weapons. One of the drawbacks is that the enemy is shown to be too weak and does not have much of a character, and the development of the characters is bland. But, the lead actors playing B and Zero give a decent performance. A bit more work on the script would have improved the rating, but I feel the rating of 4.6 is too low, and it deserves at least a rating of 5.

Want act-ing? Get you some Laurence Olivier. Want act-ion? This is it. Plot? Sure there's a plot. Evil arms dealer, mad scientist, super weapon, ruthless dictator, loyalist militia, elite band of freedom fighters . . . Have you put together the mission yet? Of course you have.

Why didn't the militia bad guys just shoot the brave lady freedom fighter instead of letting her hack eight of them to pieces with twin battle axes? Please.

I just wish all these action stars would listen when I tell them to pick up the fallen bad guy's Kalashnikov instead of trying to fight off the rest of the bad guys with a half-empty SIG.

Kinda corny Butch-and-Sundance ending though. So the director got to have a little fun with us. Grin and bear it.

Enjoyable movie. Lots of action scenes, The actor ( Chad Michael Collins) playing Brandon Beckett, looks like he really knows how to use a sniper rifle. It also looks good (and make me feel proud) to be South African, seeing that Arnold Vosloo plays the role of Mauser Maxim in this movie. (Noticed a mistake you made you named Rob van Vuuren as the actor playing Mauser Maxim.) Because of him (Arnold) that is the reason I watched the. Movie. The overall plot I must say it started a little slower than I liked, but as it picked up speed as the story goes along. The end is quite climatic. Overall it won't win a Oscar but was enjoyable.