"Mile 22" - Review

It’s been a weird summer for action movies. There have been a couple of low budget films that fit the bill, but outside the Mission: Impossible franchise, the mid-size late summer action movie has gone by the wayside in favor of superhero CGI extravaganzas. The only director working in this arena is Peter Berg, and Mile 22 is a perfect example of the type of films that there should be more of. It’s not without its flaws, but it has a straightforward, propulsive premise and explores themes of violence begetting violence.
 
James “Jimmy” Silva (Mark Wahlberg) is the leader of the top-secret U.S. government paramilitary agency Overwatch. The organization is so top secret that when agents go on a mission they have to formally resign from the government, and go so thoroughly off the grid that they are considered “ghosts.” Six months after a mission against a Russian terror cell goes bad, James and his team (consisting of Lauren Cohan, Ronda Rousey and Carlo Alban) are on the hunt for stolen cesium powder, which has the potential to make atomic bombs. This leads them to the fictional Southeast Asian city of Indocarr in search of a Special Forces agent, Li Noor (Iko Uwais), who has access to an encrypted computer disk that will reveal the location of the cesium. Noor won’t give away that information so easily, however — he wants safe extraction to the United States. So, Silva and his team must make a twenty-two mile trek from the U.S. embassy to the extraction point, all while the Indocarr government sends wave after wave of cannon fodder soldiers after them. This leads to all sorts of expected double crosses and reversals.
 
As far as straightforward pulpy action premises go, this one is standard but effective. Peter Berg shoots the action sequences in a chaotic style, which brings immediacy and brutality to them, but not exactly coherency. When you have a martial artist like Uwais on the team, cutting action sequences into chaotic mini bits is a disservice — action movie hounds will want to see the whole fight. That said, there’s a fairly gruesome and great close-quarters fight that’s really intense.
 
The script by Lea Carpenter adds a few dimensions to Silva’s rag tag group of badassess, particularly leaning into Silva’s anger management issues, with a theme running through the movie about warriors trying to keep calm in the face of unrelenting warfare. Silva is always in a heightened state of stress; he constantly flicks an elastic band on his wrist.  Similarly, Noor is always meditating to keep himself calm.
 
Performances are all professional. Lauren Cohan unleashes her inner badass and inner mother. Mark Wahlberg has become a fixture as the action movie tough guy with deep pain and outward rage, and he plays Silva to the hilt. Similar to The Raid, Uwais gives an awesome physical performance and the few moments where he and Wahlberg team up are fun, and I hope to see more of this pairing.
 
All in all Mile 22 is a professional, brutal, diversion into the sordid world of black ops counterterrorism. I just wish the action scenes were a little cleaner and less messy. I understand what Berg and co. were going for — war is confusing and messy and not elegant — it’s just hard to keep track of who’s shooting who and where.
 
Two and a half out of four stars.