Miles of action in Wahlberg thriller
Mile 22 (R16, 94mins) Directed by Peter Berg. Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★1⁄2
Fun and ironic fact. Any film in which any character says ‘‘failure is not an option’’ is almost always an unmitigated pile of guano.
But, in this post-blockbuster season, Mile 22 might just be the happy exception.
Mile 22 picks up a plot as old as the action genre. There’s a fugitive from the forces of nastiness who must be escorted along a predetermined route by a couple of good cops, while the criminals try to kill them.
That at least one of the apparent good guys will turn out to be a traitor is taken as read.
My favourite iteration of the storyline is still 16 Blocks, with Bruce Willis as the last incorruptible cop in the NYPD trying to get witness Mos Def safely across town to a courthouse.
But until that mostly forgotten gem turns up on Netflix, I reckon Mile 22 will do to be going on with.
The film spins its yarn across modern-day Jakarta. A former Indonesian Special Forces soldier and CIA ‘‘asset’’ reckons he knows the location of a missing shipment of ruinously radioactive Caesium 139.
But he’s demanding to be flown out of the country before he will cough up the information. The airport, of course, is 22 miles from the US Embassy.
What unfolds is a thriller that runs the gamut from seen-it-allbefore to actually-not-too-shabby, often within a single scene.
Lead Mark Wahlberg pulls his usual trick of starting at such a level of angst-fuelled hysteria he really has nowhere left to go.
This is Wahlberg’s fourth collaboration with director Peter Berg (after Lone Survivor, Patriots Day and Deepwater Horizon) and, as always, Berg and his bunchy little muse don’t stint on the action, nor the hilariously hyper-macho dialogue and narration.
But the team-up is as effective here as ever. The real star of Mile 22 though is surely Indonesian martial arts icon Iko Uwais.
Wahlberg and MMA fighter Ronda Rousey might be getting the star billing in this hemisphere, but Mile 22 is Uwais’ film.
Uwais shows up here with exactly the brand of charisma and savagely precise violence he brought to The Raid, Raid 2 and Head Shot.
If you’re a fan of Uwais already, you’ll know he is always worth the price of your ticket. And if you aren’t, then Mile 22 is a pretty good place to make yourself acquainted.
A lengthy sequence set in a rundown apartment block is Berg quoting directly from the films that made Uwais famous.
Elsewhere, John Malkovich and his toupee are mostly wasted as Wahlberg’s CIA controller.
Mile 22 is an over-stated and predictable film. But as a showcase for some serviceable camerawork, bravura editing and occasionally brilliantly inventive fight choreography, it ticks the boxes.
What unfolds is a thriller that runs the gamut from seen-it-allbefore to actually-nottoo-shabby, often within a single scene.