Two films that opened Friday illustrate Hollywood’s response to 9/11 in different ways.
“Reign Over Me”: Maudlin without being moving. “Shooter”: Rousing — even as it reminds us that America’s paranoid political tradition is also its paranoid political future.
“Reign,” starring Adam Sandler, sees 9/11 grief through a strictly Manhattan prism — no Outer Borough firefighters or cops need apply. It’s a tale for yuppies who, long before the Twin Towers fell, suffered from urban anxiety despite having nice apartments and lots of lawyers, therapists and fund managers. “Reign” will speak to those who seek release from the burdens of wealth — and not to many more.
But “Shooter,” starring Mark Wahlberg, plays on the larger screen of “flyover” America, speaking to the confused emotions being felt in the Heartland — a mix of pride in our troops, deep mistrust of the government and disillusion about America’s mission in the world. We’ve seen this stormy psychic mix before: A bitter brew of backlash and conspiracy theorizing.
Wahlberg plays a Marine marksman with the evocative name of Bob Lee Swagger, who is sent on a military mission to a Third World country. He is told he’s there to save lives, but the real purpose, he discovers, is oil. As a matter of allegory, Swagger might as well be in Iraq — the words “mission accomplished” are used with acid irony.
But the mission goes awry, and Swagger’s best buddy is killed. So Swagger goes back home to the Rockies to live in cowboy solitude: He drinks beer, tends to his weapons collection and hangs out with his one remaining trustworthy companion, a hunting dog.
So Swagger fits into the familiar American archetype: The haunted strong-silent-type loner — like Daniel Boone, who headed west from Kentucky in 1799 because, he said, the Bluegrass State was becoming “too crowded.” From his remote location, Swagger pays attention to politics, but he just doesn’t like what he sees. A copy of the 9/11 Commission report sits on his desk. When he turns on his computer, he mutters, “Let’s see what lies they’re trying to tell us.”
Then political skulduggery comes calling. Without giving away the plot, we can say that part of the US government persuades Swagger to return to duty, to use his marksmanship skills once again. But there’s a horrible trick, and soon the good-hearted Swagger finds himself in a desperate struggle to save his life and, just as important, his honor.
Fortunately for action-craving ticket buyers, Swagger is well equipped for his struggle against the establishment. As he says, “I didn’t start it, but I’m sure as hell going to see it through.”
In spinning a lurid story of the deepest possible corruption in the highest government-corporate circles, “Shooter” recalls a long tradition of war heroes turned postwar crackpots. Smedley Butler, for example, was a real-life Marine, winner of two Medals of Honor, who concluded that it had all been a lie; in 1935 he published a book entitled “War Is a Racket.” “I spent most of my time,” he wrote of his three decades of military service, “as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.”
Indeed, just about every war has yielded crackpot politics and culture. After World War II, Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., was so addled in his anti-communism that he accused even the army of being a hotbed of pro-Soviet subversion.
And we might remember that Sylvester Stallone’s “Rambo” character started out, in the 1982 film “First Blood,” as a victim of the government, which betrayed him and his comrades in Vietnam.
And now “Shooter,” coming in the wake of 9/11 and Iraq — an early indicator that yet another cycle of postwar conspiratorialism is starting again, shooting back darkly to the home front.
