Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Paramount Movie •••½ Picture •••• Sound •••½ Extras ••••

Informative extras that shed new light on a film are always welcome, and the bonuses on Shooter are just such a treat. Survival of the Fittest, a 21-minute production documentary, does a great job of explaining how snipers operate. Shooter's military technical adviser, Patrick Garrity, is on hand to discuss bullets and trajectories - and to show how he trained a Hollywood star, Mark Wahlberg, to play Bob Lee Swagger, a former Marine duped into being the fall guy for a political assassination. Also included are seven deleted and extended scenes (two of which actually add to the story) and a 5-minute featurette on Independence Hall in Philadelphia, used as a primary location in the film.

The 2.35:1 widescreen image shows that careful attention has been paid to color and contrast in the DVD transfer. A napalm attack, one of the many explosions, creates flames of an incredible hue. Contrast is quite good, definition is sharp, blacks are solid, and there's plenty of detail in the shadows. The sound effects for all the pyrotechnics, as well as a lot of heavy gunfire, are realistically placed around a 360º field. Dialogue is sometimes too low, making it hard to catch all of Wahlberg's mumbled lines, but then talk isn't the focus of this action movie.

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