Mile 22

Year: 2018
Director: Peter Berg
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Lauren Cohan, Iko Uwais, John Malkovich, Ronda Rousey, Sam Medina


Plot: A covert team of highly trained operatives is assigned to transport an asset with important information from the US Embassy to an airplane 22 miles away. The team comes under heavy attack from locally hired agents, who seek to silence the asset before he talks.


Review: Mile 22 is at best, a frustrating film, at worst, clunky, as another reviewer put it. It's actually a pretty good action flick, but considering you have Peter Berg as director, Mark Wahlberg as the lead star and Iko Uwais, one of the top action stars on the planet doing what he does best in it, you'd expect it to be more than pretty good.

Berg is certainly no stranger to action movies. The Rundown and The Kingdom happen to be my favorite action vehicles from the man. Mile 22 leans closer to the latter than the former in tone, but it has none of the kinetic fun of the former or the compelling drama of the latter. The closest they get to being dramatic is Lauren Cohan's character dealing with some personal issues with her ex husband (Berg in a cameo). Cohan's character Alice is certainly one of the best things about the film as she is a perfect representation of how we would react if we were in her shoes doing her job.

Wahlberg on the other hand is basically replaying the same character he had in The Departed, where he gets to swear a lot and go on and on with his temper. There's this scene where he mouths off for about 3 minutes on a techie simply because she wanted more time to crack a code. This, added to a handful of other moments where he loses his temper and goes on a near endless tirade on other people make him damn near unlikable, and their explanation on him having some sort of condition doesn't quite help. The only time you'd actually respect him is when he actually shows concern for Alice, despite him making her one of his many targets of rage.

Then there's Uwais, who gets his big break in Hollywood (no, Star Wars doesn't count), and kicking ass more than once here. But the bad camerawork ruined what must have been superb fight choreography by Uwais and his team, which is a real shame.

So is there anything that's good? Quite a lot actually. Berg opted for a grittier style here, which works better when the team is engaged in a firefight, but not during the hand-to-hand fights. Ronda Rousey's acting has improved considerably since The Expendables 3, but she doesn't get to manhandle anyone here (not that I care). Cohan gets to speak some Indonesian and actually pulls it off well. Berg doesn't hold back on the violence thankfully, so all the action sequences have bloody results. The twist at the end was rather predictable, but I still liked it.

Berg had actually planned this to be a trilogy of sorts, and judging by how it ended, it certainly needs a follow up. But the somewhat poor execution of this film and the less than stellar box office takings so far might have torpedoed that plan. Mile 22 is a good movie and has lots of potential, but doesn't quite live up to it. Still kinda like it though. (7/10)