Mile 22 Review - An Action Packed Race Against Time CIA Thriller

Details

Category: Film

Published on Thursday, 16 August 2018 19:47

Written by Janet Walker

Mile 22, from STX Entertainment, brings to the screen a contemporary, high tech espionage story focusing on a special active CIA team traveling the globe answering the call when hot situations threaten the safety and security of America.

Directed by Peter Berg, Mile 22 stars Mark Wahlberg, Lauren Cohen, Iko Uwais, Rhonda Rousey, Carlo Alban, Emily Skaggs, Sam Medina, Billy Smith, Myke Holmes, Chae-rin Lee, Jenique Hendrix, Terry Kinney, and John Malkovich and has a strong team of support talent. Mile 22 was written for the screen by Lea Carpenter based on story by Graham Roland.

The film begins with a montage of the life of James Silvia, played by Mark Wahlberg, with brief pauses emphasizing  personality quirks, a mind that moves faster than his words or actions and keep up with and a rubber band on his wrist to snap him back to the moment when he feels himself spinning out of control. Of course, rage, a horrific accident that kills his mother and two brothers, his exemplary military service, and finally induction into a special unit of CIA operatives are also featured.

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With the background on Silvia is established the film cuts to live action focusing on a couple who are going back and forth as they question whether they have the directions right, are they at the right house, did he search the right Christmas Tree Lane, Circle, Street? It’s a white house, just ask, we’re lost, just ask.

This scene builds as one wonders are they going to ring the door bell and the house blows up, or walk in on a massive shoot out, either way the expectation is our lost couple will somehow get caught up in a wrong place, wrong time scenario.

As the drone sends back images we see five heat sources inside and our couple at the front door, the information is relayed to team leader, Silvia who is positioned in the back yard with his team in place waiting for the go ahead.

Bishop, also known as Mother, played by John Malkovich, runs the operation along with a technical team who have the ability to control anything on a grid system, from traffic signals and controls, to emergency services. A map system outlines the area and overhead images sent by drones.

All operations are CIA, although outsourced to a special teams unit, who at the onset of each operation resign their government employment and are reinstated at the missions end.

Given the go order, the team at the front door are still asking directions when the door opens and a Russian female answers. Barely opening the door, the “husband” we see tosses a smoker and the entire house becomes a take down operation.

As it is described on the six o’clock news, the Russians were running a Safehouse in suburbia and an unfortunate explosion killed everyone.

With the team style and operations established the next mission in this ultra-modern age of global annihilation, we find the team has been called to to US Embassy in the Philippines, where on a solid source they moved on a house expecting to secure a form of missing anthrax type powder which is expected to be released in six major global cities.

This is where we meet our operations team with Missions Director Johnny Porter, played by Terry Kinney, Alice Kerr, played by Lauren Cohan, Sam Snow, played by Ronda Rousey, Li Noor, played by Iko Iwais. Support team King, played by Keith Arthur Bolden, Knight played by Jenique Hendrix, Rook, played by Billy Smith, Pawn played by Myke Holmes and M.I.T played by Emily Skeggs and the enemy, Axel, played by Sam Media.

With the raid a bust, we see the finer side of Silvia, and a descriptive term by each member of the support team, as he attempts to secure information from Alice as to why her source, that she marked, was suddenly unreliable, which is when a walk in with a computer disc shows up and Alice explains he is her source.

Considered mentally imbalanced Wahlberg plays the extreme team leader with borderline personality disorders well and even as he "goes off" his team recognizes his effectivness and skill.

Mile 22, at this point becomes a race against time to get the source to the airport 22 miles from the embassy. As a high level operative, with Mother calling the shots the team expects a ten minute drive, as Silvia later explains during a debriefing of all things he expected in the trip he expected the comms to be secure, only to find another nation wanted the team dead.

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With seriously heavy body count, Mile 22 is a remembrance that the cold war is often as hot as declared war zones, and to protect America, some blood must be shed. Mile 22 uses every possible weaponry, from mixed martial arts, high powered automatic weapons, knifes, improvised weaponry, glass shards, hand to hand combat.

The film plays the race against time well, with Wahlberg and Director Peter Berg team taking on another element of American patriotism, as each attack becomes greater the losses do as well. Mile 22, may be a work of fiction and it obviously contains modern CIA tactics and scenarios. Most of which don’t make the news.

Mile 22, an action packed CIA, seriously high powered race against time opens August 17, 2017. See it.