Sniper

As action films go, Llosa's debut is more mindful than mindless. Berenger is Marine sniper Tom Beckett, a military hit-man with 74 kills under his belt and a troubled conscience squirming in his head. In partnership with greenhorn government agent Richard Miller (Zane), a training school grad with top brass plans but no field experience, his latest mission is to penetrate the jungles of post-Noriega Panama and take out a would-be right wing dictator. The smooth running of the operation is swiftly jeopardised by growing personal tensions... A virtual two- hander, the narrative proceeds by contrasting Berenger's edgy pragmatism with Zane's unwilling induction to the art of murder, though the director's inventive bullets' eye-view shots still fail to dispel the suspicion that the film has little new to say.