A retired sniper in hiding on an Australian ranch must reunite her elite kill squad when a vengeful warlord threatens her daughter.
“Seven Snipers” sets its sights firmly on the revenge-thriller crowd, providing a tense, visually arresting battle of wits set amid the remotest reaches of the Australian outback. Kris Hendricks (Radha Mitchell) is a former assassin- one of the deadliest snipers in the world-who is unceremoniously swept back into a deadly game by a remote and nameless adversary (played with icy relish by Tim Roth). What begins as a simple standoff becomes a manhunt, as long-standing angers are reawakened and uncovered agendas are exposed.
Mitchell is in fine form, investing her protagonist with a nervous, unwavering vulnerability that makes every gunshot fired seem like a blow to her soul. Roth, by contrast, devours the mise en scene as the film’s mysterious villain-his stoic, shrewd threat is the ideal complement to Mitchell’s oneiric exhaustion. All of the film’s saving grace is their work.
Director Tom Carter, along with Cinematographer Jane Hanley, is to be commended for extracting the maximum amount of tension from the first hour. The story is well paced, believable, and the isolated Australian bush setting is both stunning and treacherous-idyllic, remote, and deadly. The beginning sequences and sparse dialogue, along with the intense suspenseful hunts and chases, really make “Seven Snipers”.
Sadly, the second half of the film just doesn’t have the same edge as the first. As the narrative turns toward exposition and backstory, it all starts to lose steam. The story – while quite decent – never really manages to escape the confines of the standard revenge-thriller formula; and the flashbacks and character exploration seem more forced than insightful. Action gives way to long conversations and flashbacks, and the tension that bubbled along ceases to be.
Nevertheless, for genre enthusiasts, there are some pleasures to be found: brisk direction, convincing acting, and a setting that doesn’t feel all that familiar even if the story does. “Seven Snipers” won’t change the face of the revenge thriller, but it’s a competent enough addition to the genre with a good deal of intrigue and roughness to justify a viewing-particularly if you’ve long been yearning to see Roth and Mitchell take center stage.
Available on Blu-ray™ and DVD August 11th
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