MILE 22: Chaotically Directed and Edited, Peter Berg Owes the Excellent Iko Uwais an Apology

Genre: Action

Produced by: Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, Peter Berg

Directed by: Peter Berg

Written by: Lea Carpenter, Graham Roland

Production Company: STX Films, Huayi Brothers

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Lauren Cohan, John Malkovich, Ronda Rousey, Iko Uwais
Runtime: 94 minutes

SYNOPSIS: 

An elite, covert American task force led by James Silva (Mark Wahlberg) is tasked to escort Li Noor (Iko Uwais), a government asset with valuable intelligence, from the embassy to the airport. As the title suggests, the 22 mile long trip brings the team face-to-face with terrorists from foreign intelligence, who all wants to get their hands on the asset. 

REVIEW: 

Mile 22 is the fourth collaboration between director Peter Berg and lead actor Mark Wahlberg.  Different from their last three films (Lone Survivor (2013), Deepwater Horizon (2016) & Patriots’ Day (2016)), which were all based on real-life events, the duo opted for an original, completely fictional story this time around. Rather than being another heavy drama, their latest foray seems to be going for the lighter, straightforward action movie route. 

However, to the Indonesian filmgoers, the main selling point of Mile 22 is the involvement of Indonesian action star Iko Uwais in a major starring role. The actor/fight choreographer has had a major starring role in a Hollywood production before with Beyond Skyline (2017), but this is by far his most high-profile role yet in terms of the big names surrounding him. As the trailer suggests, refreshingly, it seems like Iko Uwais has received a massive upgrade from glorified cameo to a central character with a direct impact to the narrative.  Also, as the trailer suggests, it seems like the film is tailor made for The Raid star’s talents: one big, gritty feature-length action sequence filled with gunfights, martial arts, gore and other bunch of craziness. 

As the film suggests though, Mile 22 attempts to be much deeper than the typical summer, pulpy action movie.  Peter Berg sets up scenes like every second matters in regards to its timeliness to the current real-world political climate. Part conspiracy thriller and part family drama within the action movie framework, it tries to explore how a routine 22 mile extraction job greatly affects the multitude of governments involved and how working in such a covert task force takes its toll on one of the members’ family life. It is Berg’s epic, overarching vision of the narrative against its small-scale premise that gives the impression of a film with a sense of identity crisis tonally. It feels like a mishmash of genres that just does not fit. 

As a result, the human moments feel unnecessary and boring, particularly in the first act. Basically, here is where most of the film’s heavy stuffs are thrown into the mix, but beyond that, they are quickly brushed aside to irrelevance. When they are mentioned again later, they are referenced in a somewhat throwaway manner. It is as if those extra subplots are there only as an excuse to make the audience care for the situation and the characters involved in it. An asset holds a valuable intelligence that can spark a war between nations. One of the task force’s members Alice (Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan) is struggling to balance work life with family life. These are politically and emotionally high-stake themes that would have mattered, if they were a more constant presence than what’s in the final cut. 

Peter Berg is clearly trying to make a serious film here, but it is hard to take Mile 22 seriously when the actors present are given unintentionally hilarious dialogues. There is even a character at one point who says to Mark Wahlberg, “Say hi to your mother for me,” which would have passed the more casual viewers by, but one that the pop culture aficionados could not help but laugh due to its similarities to comedian Andy Samberg’s punch line in a Saturday Night Live sketch, which just so happens to poke fun at Mark Wahlberg’s personality. There is room for self-aware humor, but not in this film in regards to the tone Berg is going for. 

Besides trying to combine genres, Mile 22 also tries to make the fusion between nonlinear narrative and twist ending work. The film has this strange back-and-forth style of storytelling, with scenes of a character in the present narrating about an event that happened in the past overlapping with scenes that are eventually the visual reconstruction of what the character is narrating. In regards to the film’s twist ending, it ruins the surprise element. There’s a character’s line of dialogue during the present sequence that hints too bluntly at who the bad guy is. Rather than letting us guess who the bad guy is, the whole film is just us waiting for the person the character is referring to to become the bad guy. 

Another irritating thing about Mile 22 rests on the name of the Southeast Asian country. A title card reveals that the story takes place in some Southeast Asian country. It is clear that this film takes place in Indonesia, with one scene in a café actually showing locals speaking the native language. However, it is borderline offensive that the film refuses to refer to Indonesia by its namesake. 

In Mile 22, an alternate reality of Indonesia exists, with undoubtedly one of the most ridiculous substitute name for an existing country called Indocarr City. It is like the writers took a trip along the sidewalk in Indonesia one night to look for inspiration in terms of a fictional country name, and, as they happen to cross by two of the biggest supermarkets in the country (Indomaret & Carrefour), they just thought fusing these two names would result in a cool name for a Southeast Asian country. It is hard to believe that a director of Peter Berg’s stature, a man who was once given a $150 million budget to make Deepwater Horizon (2016), could pull such a cheap, Slender Man (2018)-like (in its referring to YouTube as “website videos”) move with something as minute as a country’s name. 

Yet, by far, the most woeful aspect of Mile 22 is Peter Berg’s filmmaking style. Fortunately, the rest of the film after its sluggish first act is non-stop, fast-paced action, which is a good thing, right? Fast-paced action is obviously designed to pump the audience’s adrenaline, but here, Berg confuses adrenaline-pumping for making every action sequence here feel like watching a series of blurry movements. 

This is disappointing considering the fact that its star/fight choreographer Iko Uwais has inventive ideas for the stunts. There is one sequence involving his character beating up two goons while chained to a hospital bed, which would have been at least watchable if it was directed by someone like a David Leitch (Deadpool 2 (2018), John Wick (2014- present), Atomic Blonde (2017)) or even a Leigh Whannell (Upgrade (2018), oh please, see this movie). Yet here, the audience is subjected to Berg’s incompetent, mostly unwatchable direction, further punctuated by the extensive use of shaky cam and quick cut editing. 

Every time people are being jerked around left and right like a ragdoll, it is like the camera feels the urge to copy such reaction to give the audience maximum impact, to rather nauseating effect. To make people believe that these people are doing these action scenes in breakneck speed, Berg decides to cut from one scene to another in a rate that’s faster than the blink of a normal human’s eye, to rather epileptic effect. 

There is no denying that the actors, Iko Uwais in particular, are doing these stunts for real, but the bouncy camerawork insults their physical talents on show, as if the director doubts their ability to perform convincing gunfights and martial art sequences without the camera doing it for them. It is like witnessing artists painting a masterpiece, only for their meddling friends to suddenly throw a large bucket of paint all over the canvas, obscuring any shred of artistic value left in it. By then, you are left with no clue of what is going on during the action sequences for most of the time. 

Berg’s distracting filmmaking style permeates even through to the dialogue sequences. There are many conversational moments which would have benefitted from a wider angle to give the impression of the character actually talking to another character Yet again, Berg’s fetish for quick cuts takes over, and as a result, such scenes often feel like actors are talking to themselves rather than talking to another actor. 

Every time a character speaks, the camera points to his/her face in a close-up or extreme close-up. Every time a character finishes a line, it cuts to a face close-up, often the next person to speak. It’s a constant close-up face shot, cut, close-up face shot, cut, over and over again. Maybe all the actors were present on set during the principal photography, but it also makes sense if they are all just a bunch of scenes with actors in the same location but shot in a different time period spliced together to make it seem like they are having a conversation in the same time frame. 

Mark Wahlberg here plays the task force leader James Silva, or in other words a heightened version of Ben Affleck’s obsessive compulsive character in The Accountant (2016). There are a lot of similarities between the two, from Silva’s obsession with puzzle pieces to his tendency to hurt himself, this time by slapping his wrist with a rubber band. Whereas Ben Affleck can make a person with a severe case of obsessive compulsive disorder compelling, Mark Wahlberg just makes one annoying. He spends the entire film constantly nagging, and being rude to people in situations that do not necessitate rude behavior. Obviously, the writers intend for Wahlberg’s protagonist character to be unlikable, but the character gets so unlikable that the difference between the good guy and the bad guy becomes indistinguishable. It is hard to root for a person who is as bad as or even worse than the bad guys themselves. It is hard to care for Silva when serious moments like his OCD outburst, meant to make the audience sympathize for him, become laughable due to the actor’s delivery. 

Lauren Cohan plays fellow task force member Alice and for a moment, she is the character with the deepest arc amongst the other members. She has a lot of emotional heavy lifting to do early in the film, particularly in terms of her strained relationship with her own family. However, beyond that, when the action starts to kick in, the moment the family conflict is barely referenced again in the film, she just becomes as vapid and uninteresting as Wahlberg and the rest of the crew. Her best character trait is really her firm grasp of the Indonesian language, which is just incredible for a non-native speaker. John Malkovich just so happens to be in the film, playing the task force’s boss James Bishop/”Mother”, and  all he does is stand behind computer screens and tell people what to do and where to go. It is just an excuse to get a big-name actor to play a role that anyone can play in their sleep. 

Iko Uwais is ultimately the sole bright spot in the entire film. One moment designed to give his character Li Noor a tragic past aside, there is not much character to him besides being a badass. Yet, every time Iko is onscreen, he oozes badassery. Everything he does, whether he just sits and talks or crunching people’s bones left and right, is captivating to watch. Fortunately, he is quite a constant figure in the story, even if, unfortunately, he has to concede the spotlight to Wahlberg’s character.  He has unarguably the better action sequences out of the other cast members. If only they were shot better …

CONCLUSION: 

Mile 22 is the rare action movie that doesn’t allow its audience to see the action sequences. Iko Uwais clearly worked his socks off on the stunts, only to be treated with chaotic camerawork, epileptic editing and an incoherent story. Mr. Berg, I expect a letter of apology to Mr. Iko Uwais very soon. 

Score: 3.5/10