Sometimes it’s fascinating to see how far away some franchises get from its original movie. Take the Fast & Furious series as an excellent example; if you could leap into a time machine with a brand new, shiny copy of Fast X and zapped yourself back to 2001 as a newly minted fan stepped out of their first viewing, what the Hell would they make of what the franchise became? A similar point could be made with the Sniper franchise, the little war/action series that by 2023 was also on its tenth installment.
With the first film popping up in 1993, the series has undergone a few changes here and there from Luis Llosa’s edgy, men-in-a-jungle movie with Tom Berenger providing ailing star power for the first three and Chad Michael Collins taking over as his son from the fourth film onwards. But while them series has mostly stuck with serious, gritty wargames for the most part, 2022s Rogue Mission gave the franchise a total, tonal revamp. Brighter, zipper and surprisingly colourful, director Oliver Thompson added something of an MCU/Mission: Impossible flavour to proceedings that he carried on over into G.R.I.T. and delivered a fun actioner to boot – but could he keep it up for his second tour of duty…?
After getting founded at the close of Rogue Mission, we find the Global Response & Intelligence Team (G.R.I.T. to all you acronym fans out there) in the midst of something of a major mission. As both Brandon Beckett and Zeke “Zero” Rosenberg are briefed on the go by Colonal Gabriel Stone as he curls weights in the gym, we find that their third operative, the ninja known as Lady Death, is confirmed to still be alive. This proves to be something of a shock to Brandon and Zero as they wasn’t actually aware that she was listed as missing let alone dead, but once they’re all briefed and tooled up, they head off to Malta to finish her mission.
Her mission was to disband the cult known as the State Of Aragon by assassinating its key members and finishing up with its leader, Ivan Bubalo, but after getting made and having a few bullets put in her back (try four!), Brandon and Zero step up to take out the top dogs before their emerald-clad fanatics catch on. However, neutering the State Of Aragon proves to only be part of the mission as matters decide to complicate themselves as things progress. For a start, Lady Death’s estranged, crime lord father shows up to make mischief and it seems to have something to do with the alliance that formed between LD and Bubalo, but things get ever more chaotic, the members of G.R.I.T. soon realise that somehow, somewhere, someone is betraying them.
Thankfully Stone is on the way to help straighten things out and he’s brought puzzle-obessed computer geek, Intelligence Pete, with him. But with bullets of various calibre and a whole bunch of fists flying on every direction, can the gang G.R.I.T. their teeth and persevere?
It’s fairly ironic that the tenth Sniper movie carries the subtitle of G.R.I.T. when the film itself is noticably lacking it. Oh, there’s bloody kills and cordite aplenty, but once again director Oliver Thompson chooses to brush of the stereotypical moodiness of other, direct to streaming action/war movies and deliver a perky, fun romp that, if anything, is even more cartoonier than his last entry. For a start, almost every line of dialogue is either a glib retort or a throwaway zinger and the script relies just as much on farcical misunderstandings and leaps of luck as it does on frenzied gunfights and cool takedowns. Those who like their action in the more grim, colour-bleached sort of fashion will understandably grumble that the Marvel aesthetic has “ruined” everything, but I genuinely believe that Thompson’s insistence on making the colours pop like a Saturday morning cartoon and adding liberal doses of levity has continued to make the Sniper franchise the most fun it’s been in years.
OK, so maybe even by Oliver Thompson’s standards, some of the look if the film goes a wee bit over board. The cult that the majority of the action revolves around insist on dressing themselves entirely in green and as a result watching our heroes pepper gunfire at villains clad in shamrock coloured overalls starts to feel like a hyper-violent episode of Adam West’s Batman. Elsewhere, a mute, constantly scowling henchman seems to be strangely using bad guys from Wes Anderson movies as a template as how to act – think Willem Defoe’s glowering thug from The Grand Budapest Hotel and you’re most of the way there. On the other hand, Thomson really has an eye for big action sequences set in smaller films as he continues to push the absurdity of these flicks with some imaginative setpieces.
We have Josh Brener trying to lead Dennis Haysbert through a gauntlet of baddies after patching his phone into the CCTV feed allowing the one-time 24 president to coolly shoot goons around corners. Elsewhere we find Zero luring each of Bubalo’s underlings up to the roof where the near-flawless cross-hairs of Beckett is waiting and best of all, Lady Death gets one of those “one shot” brawls as she takes on an entire gaggle of villains in a fight that arguably could hold its own with movies with five times the budget. However, I do have to wonder why original Lady Death actress Sayaka was a no-show, even if Luna Fujimoto more than earns the red eye make up thanks to that impressive, one-woman shit-kicking alone.
Of course, while this is an above average Sniper installment, it’s all fairly silly stuff and if you didn’t want the franchise to slide further into the realms of a low budget Mission: Impossible, then G.R.I.T. isn’t going to much more than wind you up. Amusingly, despite the fact that Chad Michael Collins is much better served trading crisp backchat with Ryan Robbins than his stint in the earlier films as a morally lost sniper progeny, the films still seem rather unsure how to utilise him, keeping him perched on rooftops in an absurd muscle shirt while everyone else is doing the hard work on the ground. Also, there’s a sense that if the series has to so much as one toe further beyond the ridiculous notion of a bright green cult, it would be in danger of suddenly tumbling into full comic book comedy mode without much hope of crawling it’s way back.
So where does the Sniper franchise go from here – well, certainly not happier, that’s for sure as I genuinely think Thompson’s tested the limits for frivolity far enough. But as it stands, not only is it some sort of unfathomable miracle that this franchise has made it to its tenth instalment, but the fact that it’s as fresh and fun as ever is something of an unexpected surprise. But then that’s snipers for you – always sneaking up in places you’d never expect…
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