Leofwine_draca More low rent straight-to-video action tosh. This one sees a tired looking Tom Berenger signed up for a mission that sees him off to Vietnam, where he's paired up with a local cop (Byron Mann, fresh off some Steven Seagal flicks) to track down various, nefarious bad guys.It's all very predictable and staid, despite the presence of a handful of mildly frenetic action scenes and lots of sniper action. It feels like a very different beast to its predecessor but the story feels less focused and less well realised. The whole thing about Berenger being sent on a mission by some corrupt officials is incredibly dull.The acting is as half-baked as the plotting, and at the end of the day this is a film that's extremely difficult to get excited about, purely because it's all so familiar and boring.

LeonLouisRicci A very flat looking third installment of the series. This one seems worn out as does the Beckett character, but that is most likely to happen to wounded warriors. But, "he isn't living unless his life is in danger, or he is taking someone's life" is a boneheaded but nonetheless fairly accurate description of a myopic military man/assassin.The look of the film is good for a low budget D-TV movie but it has a disoriented feel and the action is textbook and lacks vitality. The gone to the other side villain ("you are asking me to kill a guy who saved my life", he says) is contrived and that internal conflict is just a wisp and gets little screen time in this unfortunate bookend.It is a weak and inoffensive entry for this type of thing and the series, after all, should probably not have been a series. Better left to its own tag line..."one shot...one kill".

breakdownthatfilm-blogspot-com Usually by the third installment of any franchise, the stories become bland, and the characters: carbon copies and the charm is lost. Sniper 2 (2002) was a mediocre sequel but it did have some things about it that made it enjoyable. I did not favor how the first Sniper (1993), which was a thriller, turned into an action film for the sequel. I did think it was an interesting take, but it wasn't executed properly. I also didn't appreciate the character that Bokeem Woodbine played. His role was more obnoxious than involving.Here, Tom Berenger once again reprises his role as the callous marine scout sniper, Thomas Beckett. Berenger still has the character down like he did for the last two films but this time the writers address an issue with his health. J.S. Cardone and Ross Helford make it clear in this film that Beckett is no longer the soldier he once was. Because of the trauma that he suffered in the first film, he now suffers from mild muscle spasms in his hand. This small subplot may upset some viewers because in a way, it's speaking to the audience saying, "this the last time Thomas Beckett will be on screen". It's visible too. Several times it seems like Berenger is making his character look worn and drained of energy to show that Thomas Beckett is getting too old for the career he tries to hold on to. But Beckett's drawn in one more time to execute his new "hit" that was a man he once called a friend. Too bad flashbacks and dream sequences had to be used when Beckett ever focused on these issues. It's not needed.Co-starring Berenger is Byron Mann playing Quan, a police operative sent to assist Beckett in his assassination. Mann plays his character rather cool and intelligently. The writers even allowed Quan to make a personal connection with Beckett, being that his father was a scout sniper as well. This at least leads to a comparatively easy-going relationship between these two individuals. Its nothing like the stupid quibbles between Beckett and Cole from the previous film.As for the rest of the film nothing has really changed. I've accepted the fact that no one's going to bother to try and make this a thriller again. There's still lots of things being blown up, several gunshots and the anticipation of the thriller aspect is unfortunately abandoned. However, the fight scene between Quan and one of the main villain's thugs entertained me. Hand-to-hand combat is always cool to watch no matter what.Also, the location to where Beckett travels is at least a little more lively and it even allowed Tim Jones, the composer, to make his score slightly more engaging than Gary Chang's half-hearted version of the previous sequel. It's not as good as the first, but it seems to me that there was more effort put into the making of this sequel than that of Sniper 2 (2002). So although it didn't satisfy me much more than the last one, it definitely shows improvement.The second sequel to Sniper (1993) still has the qualities of a bad action film and relies too much on Beckett's rising personal issues. But what makes this one different is its character development and better music.

movieman_kev Tom Berenger is once again back on hand as our favorite fictional super sniper, Tom Beckett. This time he's sent back to Vietnam to kill Paul Finnegan, a former soldier, thought dead but gone AWOL. But the government that sends him on the mission isn't really telling him the whole truth.He teams up with the son he never knew he had (it's never said out right, but it's pretty damn obvious) to finish his mission. This movie was actually a good step up from the second one, thanks to the locale, some rather good action, and a better plot overall. I have no clue if a fourth film is being thought up, but if this is the last Sniper film then I'm glad that the series ended on a high note.My Grade: B+