Sniper: Reloaded (2011)

This post might be a short one. I don’t know for sure. I’m only starting the writing process, but I don’t think the topic I have in mind can sustain a giant word count. I think I’ll be topping out at half, or maybe a third, of how long the posts normally are. It’s not that I don’t want to write. I do. It’s just that what I want to write about isn’t something I can ramble on about forever. Because of that, this should be shorter than usual.

You see, the topic I want to go over is one that I’ve seen first-hand while working on film sets through film school. It’s something that the right person can reign in, while others will let run free and wild. It has to do with the process of making movies. It has to do with the process of bringing everything together into a cohesive product. I want to discuss shots within a movie. I’ll get into the specifics in a minute. First, I should give some background to how I got to this topic.

This week’s movie was Sniper: Reloaded. It was the fourth movie in the long-running Sniper franchise. I bet you didn’t know that franchise was still around. Or maybe you did, since you’re reading this blog. Sergeant Brandon Beckett (Chad Michael Collins), the son of Thomas Beckett (the main character from the first three movies), was making his way up the ranks in the military. He was part of a team working with the United Nations in Africa. They were ambushed while trying to retrieve an arms dealer in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The whole team was killed, except for Brandon. Wanting revenge, he teamed up with his father’s protégé, Richard Miller (Billy Zane), to stop the sniper who had killed his team in the ambush, and to get revenge on whoever ordered the ambush.

For the most part, Sniper: Reloaded was your average late 2000s/early 2010s direct-to-video action movie. It wasn’t anything special, but it wasn’t bad. It was a serviceable action movie that you could toss on and watch for an hour-and-a-half without feeling bad about the time you just spent watching it. Well, it was that way for me. Other people might feel differently. It was a simple revenge story that incorporated the military in an African setting. That worked perfectly fine.

Sniper: Reloaded wasn’t without its problems, however. Those problems creeped up in the action scenes in a way that felt all too familiar. And this is where we get back to what I alluded to earlier. Going through film school, I saw a lot of things on our sets. We weren’t professional filmmakers at that time. Most of us still aren’t. We were amateurs, doing amateur work, with the only oversight being a teacher who wasn’t on any of the sets. And a TA who was fresh out of the same program we were going through.

One thing that became a common theme through the program was that some of our directors of photography thought they knew better than the director on what the director’s vision was. If they had an idea for a cool shot, whether it fit the vision or not, whether it fit the tone or not, the people in charge of the camera would force their cool shot into the schedule. Then they would drop other, more necessary, shots because they thought their cool shot was better. It left a mess in the editing room as the editors tried to cut things together that didn’t quite fit. All because the directors of photography thought they had a cool shot without considering whether it fit the film or not.

I don’t think that mentality ever goes away. It’s like working in any workplace. People will butt heads when trying to complete a task. Many times, that butting heads will lead to some sort of compromise that could create something better. Two engineers could have differing ideas on the best way to build a component, work it out, and realize the best idea is somewhere in between. This compromise is even more true in creative outlets. Sometimes people need to be reigned in. Or brainstorming needs to happen. All to find the perfect balance.

When it comes to camerawork, there should be some balance between a director’s vision and a cinematographer’s eye for good visuals. There might be a cool shot, but it might not fit with the rest of the shots. Perhaps there’s another shot, something similar, that could work a little better. That way, things won’t feel so jarring if the shot makes it into the final edit. Audiences won’t be shaken up by the abrupt change in visual style between shots.

Sniper: Reloaded had a few shots in the action scenes that made me think the cinematographer was getting away with more than they should have. This is all an assumption. I could be completely wrong, and it could have been the director directing those shots into the movie. Remember, this was a professional movie, not my anecdotal college experience. But the shots didn’t fit at all. A character would be running around, gun in hand. Suddenly, the camera would switch to a shot looking up the barrel at the character’s face. The scenery would move around as the character would turn this way and that. However, the camera would always center the character’s face. It was disorienting to have this shot pop up in various action scenes in what was, otherwise, a straight-forward movie shot normally. There were no stylistic choices outside of these periodic action shots. I don’t know why they were in there.

That one shot, or repeated use of shot style, in the action scenes of Sniper: Reloaded was the entire reason I wrote this post. It felt so out of place that I couldn’t not bring it up. Sometimes, you can watch a movie, and one issue will stand out more than the rest. This was one of those cases. The action in Sniper: Reloaded was straight-forward, standard shot stuff. And then a POV shot of the gun muzzle, in the direction of the user’s face, was thrown in there. It threw off the feel of the scene, acting more as a distraction than anything else.

These sorts of issues permeate through all movies. There could be a great movie with one glaring issue.  It could come from the director, cinematographer, and/or editor not being on the same page. I’ve seen that sort of thing happen before. Or it could be a simple mistake that somehow made it into the final cut of a movie. You can be sure someone will notice it. Someone will point out how that little mistake or choice doesn’t fit with everything else. I just did that. Other people will, too.

Now let’s get into some notes:

• I’ve previously covered Sniper (week 430), Sniper 2 (week 430), and Sniper 3 (week 430).
• Billy Zane made his fifth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Sniper: Reloaded. He was, of course, in Sniper (week 430), but he was also in Going Overboard (week 67), The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption (week 380), and Holmes & Watson (week 486).
• The only other returning actor in Sniper: Reloaded was Patrick Lyster, who was in Death Race 2 (week 9).
• Have you seen Sniper: Reloaded? What did you think? What other movies did you think were fine, but had one standout issue within them? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments.
• Any suggestions you may have about what movies I should check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies can be dropped in the comments. You could also hit me up on Twitter to let me know.
• Make sure to check out Sunday “Bad” Movies on Instagram for more Sunday “Bad” Movies fun.
• Finally, we come to our quick look forward. I’m going to be checking out a movie you’ve probably never heard of. It’s an animated movie starring none other than Rob Schneider. It’s called Legend of the Sea. I don’t know what to expect. But it should be something. See you soon.