#EXPLORERS 1985 CAST MOVIE#
Along with the well-executed action sequences (the previously unreliable director Antoine Fuqua gets it in gear here), the movie includes a few potshots at the Bush administration. Wahlberg gets support from Michael Pena, as a skeptical FBI agent Kate Mara, as a trustworthy widow and Ned Beatty, trailing along memories of Network, as a supremely cynical Senator. From there–well, spoilers are not fair, since the movie has a few legitimate shocks and a very nice wrong-man scenario about to unfold.Ī novel by the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Stephen Hunter gives the movie a logical spine, even if the premise itself is the stuff of conspiracy theorists. Ah, but the government needs Swagger to scope out the location of a rumored attempt on the life of the president, so a shadowy government operative (Danny Glover) begs Swagger to use his sniper’s skills to out-fox the assassin.
Swagger has retreated from his duty as an off-the-books hired gun for the military, having become disillusioned with his government (switching on his TV at his remote mountain cabin, he mutters, “Let’s see what kind of lies they’re trying to sell us today.”). The film certainly has its moments - like when the young adventurers achieve liftoff in their homemade spaceship, or when a clever twist is revealed after they encounter a couple of extraterrestrials. Mark Wahlberg, carrying over good mojo from The Departed, slides neatly into the character of Bob Lee Swagger, master marksman. EXPLORERS is most notable as the film debut of Ethan Hawke and the late River Phoenix, who were just kids when they starred in this movie. After he is pressed back into service to foil an assassination attempt on the President, Swagger finds himself double-crossed again and framedĪ movie that would not have been out of place in the run of paranoid-political thrillers of the 1970s, Shooter works an entertaining variation on the assassination picture. Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) is a former Marine Corps sniper who leaves the military when a mission goes bad.