Mile 22 travels alongside James Silva, a CIA operative leading a classified tactical command unit. Aided by his team, Silva must retrieve and transport an asset in possession of sensitive information from an American embassy in Southeast Asia to an airfield twenty-two miles away for extraction. Silva and his squad soon find themselves in a race against time as the city's military, police, and street gangs close in to reclaim the asset.
Mile 22 stars Mark Wahlberg and is directed by Peter Berg, marking the fourth time the actor and director have worked together (previous collaborations include Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriots Day). I've jokingly referred to this team-up as "Berg & 'Berg" in the past, but a consistent quality can be gleaned from all three of their projects. I've liked some more than others, but Berg & 'Berg had yet to let me down... Till Thursday evening, Augst 16, 2018 that is... I didn't even know Mile 22 existed till about two weeks ago because I hadn't seen a single trailer for it. As someone who regularly keeps up with entertainment news, I found it fairly troubling that Mile 22 had flown almost completely under my radar. That should have probably been my first sign that Mile 22 would be the first Berg & 'Berg misfire...
The only cinematic situation more disappointing than a bad movie is a bad movie involving talent you trust. Peter Berg may not quite be one of my favorite directors working today, but he's certainly a skilled filmmaker whose work I eagerly anticipate to see. Sure, Berg may have directed Battleship in 2012, but he had a hot streak of releases soon after. Alas, the short-lived excellence of Berg & 'Berg had to sink eventually. Of the productions Berg & 'Berg have worked on together, this is the only one not to be based on true events. Maybe that was the lynchpin to their success or perhaps Mile 22 was merely an exemplary concept botched in execution. Whatever the case may be, Lea Carpenter and Graham Roland are credited with developing the story and Carpenter has the sole screenplay credit.
A sloppy story foundation lies as the root of most of Mile 22's problems. After the opening scene, the subsequent thirty minutes or so are incredibly difficult to follow because hardly any noteworthy information is conveyed to the audience visually or through exposition. Viewers are thrust into a situation without an explanation of what's going on exactly. The audience is certainly shown a lot through jarring, excessive jump-cuts, but none of these images can be used to piece together a cohesive plot. The most you'll be able to gather is that you're watching a spec-ops team in some facility following a failed mission some years after the opening mission. The specifics are irritatingly vague, but things eventually fall into place and the story gets going. It just takes awhile and the path taken certainly isn't advisable.
Compounding this confusion are several sequences of incomprehensible action. The actual combat itself could be quite thrilling, but the world and I will never know on account of the obnoxious shaky-cam and incoherent editing. You can hardly ever tell what's going on due to the sheer magnitude of rapid-fire cuts. Even the simple dialogue exchanges are snipped to shreds. Coupled with muted color grading, this made Mile 22 a tiresome experience when it could have easily been explosive and exciting. What makes this infinitely more annoying is the inclusion of renowned martial artist Iko Uwais as an actor and fight choreographer. If you've seen The Raid, you know Uwais is adept in this arena. There's absolutely no need to cut around this actor as though he were Liam Neeson, yet the editor persisted when the fights could have been shown in more drawn-out wide shots to be infinitely more effective. Additionally, there were some outlandish stunts which really felt out of place considering the film first established itself as a grounded action thriller.
Character-wise, everyone's flimsily written without an arc and the performances aren't much better. I don't think Mark Wahlberg's ever been worse, and I've seen him in two Michael Bay Transformers movies for crying out loud... Here, he spews a hundred words a minute in trademark Marky-Mark fashion and it didn't help that his character was especially unlikable either. As I've previously mentioned, Mile 22 squanders the abilities of Iko Uwais by over-editing his fight sequences and the actor isn't compensated with any worthwhile material. Otherwise, Ronda Rousey, Laura Cohan, and John Malkovich are alright, but hardly have anything to do and the remaining actors are even worse off in that regard.
When writing negative reviews, I always make an intentional effort to desperately search the film I'm reviewing for any elements that could be considered redeeming qualities before bestowing a letter grade. I've now scanned a feature which runs ninety-five minutes long and plots itself out twenty-two miles wide, and there's nothing salvageable about any of it. Frankly, Mile 22 isn't even worth the walking distance to watch on your own couch whenever the film makes its way to home media, your favorite streaming service, or the desolate landscape of early morning cable.
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