Sniper: Reloaded

One of the most exciting sniper films in the past 10 years. It will keep you at the edge of your seat from start to finish. The ending is totally unexpected and very satisfying. The portrayal of the military service is quite accurate unlike other sniper films that have too much sensationalism and exaggerated bravado. Don't expect too much special effects. This is a sniper film which relies on sneaky cat and mouse or hide and seek tactics, not a film about exploding robot aliens or mercenaries wielding dual Gatling guns. If you are looking for a fun action movie with a lot of suspense and a tiny hint of drama and romance, you will enjoy this movie.

A thriiling and acceptable follow-up with plenty of gunplay, stars Sergeant Brandon Beckett (Chad Michael Collins) -son of master gunnery Thomas Becket- is a military working for UN special forces in the Congo Republic, he receives orders to rescue a farmer trapped into an enemy territory. When he and his team arrive at the farm, a sniper suddenly fires and injures the soldiers. Beckett returns to his base and attempts to seek vengeance by murdering the sniper. Meanwhile, Brandon falls in love with lieutenant Ellen Abramowitz (Annabel Wright). Becket also meets his father's friend, sniper instructor Richard Miller (Billy Zane) who becomes his mentor.

A by-now fairly familiar story that's full of frantic action, violence, crossfire, plot twists and turns. There's action enough, but the choreography is somewhat mediocre with too many camera movements and plot is cursory or shallow at best. Fourth entry of "Sniper", this time starring Brandon Beckett: Chad Michael Collins , who is passable as Thomas Beckett's aforementioned son, Tom Berenguer, who is nowhere to be seen. The saga began in 1993 with 'Sniper' by Luis Llosa (Mario Vargas Llosa's nephew), an action film taking elements of 'Rambo' and 'Commando'. Twenty years later this sequel goes on focusing on sniper action scenes, but this time is set in the Central African Republic of the Congo, although it was actually filmed in South Africa. Dealing with the usual mission in which our starring attempts to find out the guilty of the death in his squadron, along the way, the smooth running of the operation is swiftly jeopardised by growing tension, betrayal and other shortfalls. While ordinary starring Tom Berenguer doesn't appears, replaced by his son Chad Michael Collins, and returning Billy Zane who had an essential role in the original 'Sniper' and now as a kind of mentor and protector of Brandon. The film didn't premiered in USA cinemas, it was direct to DVD, or streaming.

The exciting 'Sniper saga' is made up of: "Sniper" 1992 by Luis Llosa, stars Tom Berenguer, Billy Zane, J. T. Walsh, Aden Young, Dale Dye, dealing with Beckett goes in search of his target, a politician planning a coup with the help of a drug Lord. "Sniper 2" , 2002, by Craig R. Baxley, stars Tom Berenguer, Bookem Woodbine, Dan Butler, Linden Ashby, in which Beckett is called on for one last assignment, to kill a Servian general who's committing atrocíties on the Muslim population. "Sniper 3" , 2004, by P. J. Pesce with Tom Berenguer, Denis Ardnt, Byron Mann, in which Beckett is given another mission: to go Vietnam in order to smack down an old friend, John Doman, who has become a dangerous terrorist rebel . "Sniper Reloaded", 2011, by Claudio Fah, with Billy Zane, Chad Michael Murray, Annabel Wright. "Sniper: Legacy", 2014, by Don Michael Paul with Tom Berenguer, Chad Michael Collins, Doug Allen, Nestor Serrano, Dennis Haysbert, Mercedes Mashon, in which a sniper plans to kill military leaders and one of them is Thomas Beckett, the main target is to discover the murderer, and a decoy is used to hunt the sniper.

This movie has good quality action, good sound effects, and not too bad for an action movie.

Script is very weak. Poor dialogs and poor acting is pulling the quality of the movie down. I guess actors are inexperienced but doing their best with limited talents they got (or limited by the script - not sure).

Storyline is all right. It has a little twist but it becomes apparent at the start of the movie. No deep emotions and drama element, although, there was enough room for it in the story.

If you are looking for a thriller or a serious action movie, this is NOT it. This is something little better than a tele drama, which will keep you occupied till the end.

There are few "adult elements" in the movie: a short sex scene, shooting, blood, and display of child soldiers.

I kinda feared a disaster coming when I first heard about this movie only a couple of months before its release. No Berenger, at all. Some guy I never heard of playing his son. However Billy Zane's involvement sounded promising(although it had the taste of 'we couldn't get Berenger, so here have Zane instead') The trailer looked solid but showed absolutely nothing that could probably have promised quality of the first Sniper.

After having watched the final product, I have to admit that I enjoyed it. A lot. Chad Michael Collins plays a charismatic character but underacts in some situations for my taste(final kill). His physical appearance is very close to Berenger's. Think of Bruce Li in Bruceploitation terms ;) Billy Zane has just enough screen time to qualify his second name listing in the credits. He comes a lot more likable than in the first movie and has some gory kills and cool one-liners. The remaining characters also do their jobs pretty well considering their limited screen time.

The script is nothing special but so were the scripts for the first 3 movies. It pays a lot of homages to its predecessors for example in some kills and camera shots. It's clear that the makers have seen the original movies and were trying hard to bring the most enjoyable elements from those movies into the reboot. The typical "mission went wrong, fight on your own, cover up a conspiracy" element is there. As usual for the snipers series the main bad guys are not evil 'just because the script says so' but have realistic motivations. The sex scene comes out of nowhere but is needed to make some later plot points more realistic. This surely could have been made in a more fluent and less forced way.

The camera work is solid. The shaky cam is nowhere as annoying and overused as in a lot of new action movies ala The Expendables. There are some beautiful landscape shots and the locations are always exciting to look at. The mounted on the weapon camera angle is competently done for a movie of this budget league, although admittedly somewhat less impressive in the year 2011 than in 1998. The action scenes are shot furiously. Like in the first 3 movies there are not many of them, but when they come, they come with a bang. The more dialog-heavy scenes in between always have something going on and never feel like boring padding. Some weak points of the action scenes is that the baddies seem to like to run towards the sniper's hideout without shooting just to be easily killed instead of trying to hide. Maybe they are just in panic, don't get where the shots are coming from and think that they are running from the shots and not into them. Maybe it's the director's fault, both possibilities are realistic.

The soundtrack is nowhere as subtle-but-memorable as Gary Chang's soundtrack in the first two movies and also not as melancholic as the American Beautyesque soundtrack of the third Sniper movie. It sounds generic however it fits to the mood of the slower scenes and gets more energetic in the action scenes. It still manages to play a couple of similar tunes to the Chang version. Not much to complain about.

In conclusion I have to say that the Sniper series treated their fans way better than other series based on movies from the 90ies(see Darkman, Anaconda, Operation Delta Force). They might not be masterpieces and surely the Sniper sequels have been criticized for some factual errors in their plots/weapons/locations. In these regards "Sniper: Reloaded" may not be different. However for fans it is a great reboot of a series that just could not have survived with an aging Tom Berenger. I would never had thought that I would say that but: Introducing Beckett's son to series was probably the best solution in order to being able to continue the series. With Billy Zane the producers have established connection to an important character from the first movie. While the movie never feels like it belongs into the cinemas, it is obvious that everyone involved put huge effort into making the final result as good as possible. Which sadly is not that common in today's DTV movies.

Ratings Sniper: Reloaded 8/10 (with a possible fan-boy bonus of 1.5-2 points :) )

For reference: Sniper 1: 9.5/10 Sniper 2: 6/10 Sniper 3: 6.5/10

With that in mind: Make another one!

Greetings from Lithuania.

Now that's a nice one action film. I love the first "Sniper". It was my childhood film. Me with my friends watched "Sniper", "Rambo" hundreds of times. That was a GREAT (slow) action film. Years later, i watched "Sniper 2". I don't even want to remember that one because there is nothing to remember. Couple of days before i saw "Sniper Reloaded" (like "Matrix Reloaded" heh) and - what a surprise, i really liked this movie. Sure there isn't anything special - no SGI or Oscar worthy stuff, just a simple low budget action movie. And it works. Maybe because i was a fan of the first "Sniper" i really liked this one. The lines where they remember "a father" are a great ones (to the fans of the first one). Overall it's a really nice one film, just don't expect much and you will be really surprised.

My vote is 7, but because i'm a fan of the first one i'm actually giving this one a solid 8.