What on earth was this? Mark Wahlberg gives a performance of staggering miscalculation in this nonsensical, overwrought action film by director Peter Berg, who embarrasses himself after a trio of well-regarded populist docudramas. The film's opening credits busily introduce his character's origin via bite-sized indications of a troubled youth (prone to schoolyard fights! orphaned by a car accident!) before unleashing the actor as the...autistic? bipolar? just very pompous? leader of a U.S. special-forces unit. He snaps a wristband to calm himself (a tic the film obsessively catalogues), and he gives long-winded monologues on life, death, war, the failure of diplomacy, his three ex-wives, etc. The verbosity of these speeches and the rapid-fire clip at which they are delivered are presumably meant to convey the character's fiery intelligence (a philosopher and a soldier!), but the primary spectacle is watching Wahlberg deliver them as if held at gunpoint; he powers through them with dutiful efficiency, not forgetting a word, not infusing anything he says with any feeling. Iko Uwais, star of the excellent Raid films, is more compelling, and much more quiet, as the policeman our obnoxious hero is assigned to protect en route to an airport. The best scene in the film by far is a hospital-set fight allowing Uwais to (all too briefly) showcase his astonishing athleticism.

After around an hour of characters shouting at each other amid half-second shots of crowded streets, computer screens, and surveillance cameras, the film barely coheres into an extended chase scene through the oddly fictional "Indocarr City." There is a certain objectively kinetic quality to the film's final half hour (money was clearly spent on pyrotechnics, smashed vehicles, and gallons of artificial blood), but we are not invested in any of the characters, and it is hard to grasp the geography of the locations they slice, shoot, and punch their way through. It is less a fun ride than an exhausting pummeling, and then comes an unexpectedly nihilistic and contemptibly anticlimactic ending to send beleaguered moviegoers on their way as a Migos song blares over the credits.

Take Mark Whalberg’s performance in The Happening. Now imagine that performance, but instead of playing a teacher, he’s Ben Affleck’s character from The Accountant, except nowhere near as fleshed out. That’s the lead of this movie.

This sucked. There is one good scene, and like David said, it’s the hospital fight. But man does this movie do a disservice to Iko Uwais. The editing around his fight scenes, except for this one, is just nonsense. Keep the camera still and let him do all the work. How hard is that?

And the ending. Who is that for? And what’s bizarre is that the movie tips it’s hand very early with the flash forwards of Wahlberg explaining what happened on some mission. We can quickly guess that it’s the mission we’re about to see, and since we only see him it’s very easy to assume he was (groans) the lone survivor. At least Malkovich cleared everything up for the dumb-dumbs (he was a triple agent!) and died majestically in a public square. But hey, at least it sets up a sequel no one will want.

D

The movie doesn't even bother to tell us whether Lauren Cohan's character survives. They sure were confident this would become a franchise.

On a basic level, the ending could be cool. Similar to Arlington Road. It is rare to see an ending where the antagonist mostly wins. But it does not feel dark here so much as, "Next time on Mile 22..." It is the ending of a television pilot.

Boring and crap. I had no idea why this was made. Even the gun-fights were tamed and not very exciting. Walhberg does a fine job but it looks like his relationship with Berg is no longer beneficial for both.

3/10

Some of the fights were cool. Not amazing, but cool. Suffers from too much shaky-cam and not being able to see (appreciate) the choreography and kills. The story is a bit lame, to be honest. I could have done without a lot of elements in Mile 22. Wahlberg's on-going narration at a post-event inquest of sorts is the most annoying thing in the film, and the wrist band thing is also totally unneeded. Him being a cunt to everyone is probably supposed to show that his crew are the last resort bad asses that you call when all other options fail, but it's Mark Wahlberg delivering it in his soft voice, so just comes across as lame. And none of the actions they make in the film come across as anything that any other operative wouldn't do. When it gets to the 22 mile journey (which actually feels like a 2 mile journey) it improves, but I got bored of the action rather quickly, and the reveal at the end is just meh. C-

You know I was actually thinking this wasn't that bad for like the first half of it and then that awful restaurant/cafe action sequence happened and it all went downhill from there. It's bad enough that I really didn't like or care about most of the characters in this, especially Wahlberg's character who is just a whiny, asshole the entire time, but then you throw in those choppy, garbage action scenes and it easily gets 10xs worse. The opening scene was decent enough and I enjoyed the hospital room fight with Iko Uwais, but that's about it. It's hard for me to even believe Berg directed this considering how well he has done with action movies recently, but this was a fucking mess and not very competently made at all.

C-

I'm usually all in for Berg/Wahlberg collaborations but this one just sucked from start to finish. I considered watching this piece of crap in theaters, thank god I didn't.