When Peter Berg (“Battleship”) and Mark Wahlberg (“Boogie Nights”) work together, it inevitably leads to a lot of action spectacle. After the duo had already filmed ‘Lone Survivor’, ‘Deepwater Horizon’ and ‘Boston’, ‘Mile 22’ would follow in 2018 – the last collaboration between the two to date. Haven’t seen the movie yet? Then you can catch up now on Amazon Prime Video.
That’s what “Mile 22” is about
When diplomacy and traditional military solutions fail or are not seen as an option, the US government turns to elite agent James Silva (Mark Wahlberg) and his colleagues (including “The Walking Dead” star Lauren Cohan). Like ghosts, they operate across state lines and are accountable to no one.
One day, Silva and his team are assigned to recover a large amount of radioactive material that can be used to build atomic bombs. Then the spy Li Noor (Iko Uwais) proposes a deal: he wants to be taken out of the country as quickly as possible in exchange for his help. Li Noor’s enemies do not want to allow this and ensure that the 22 mile (approximately 35 km) route from the embassy to the airport turns into a huge street battle….
A grim action fireworks display
The official FILMSTARTS review of “Mile 22” gave it a solid 3 out of 5 possible stars. The conclusion of our author Christoph Petersen is as follows: “’Mile 22′ delivers a somewhat monotonous display of action fireworks before Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg suddenly prove to be much more subversive on the home stretch than we ever expected them to be. Yet ‘Mile 22’ remains more of an interesting film than a really good film.”
At its best moments, the action in “Mile 22” is characterized by a grim intensity that can reveal its full power in the super-brutal brawls. For the most part, however, Peter Berg’s production is based on rather interchangeable bangs, which pack a lot of punch on the sound level but otherwise cause little commotion. The presence of “The Raid” star Iko Uwais can do little to change that.
The real power of “Mile 22” lies in its ambivalence. After Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg have had no trouble singing odes to patriotism and camaraderie in the past, ‘Mile 22’ proves to be a profound deconstruction of heroes in the final third. Here it is once again made clear that the so-called good and bad guys are not nearly as easy to distinguish from each other as Hollywood would have us believe.