ashdoc
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Mark Wahlberg plays James Silva , a CIA agent with high intelligence but having an unstable past ( which is breezily explained as the titles of the movie come on screen ) which has given him a prolictivity for violence . Of course , that is exactly what the doctor ordered as far as action in the movie is concerned . Violence is necessary....
At the start of the movie , James and his team attack a russian safe house in the United States that contains cesium , which is a radioactive substance that can be used for mass destruction if weaponised . James has to kill a young boy who has the cesium .
Cut to 16 months later . In a southeast asian nation called Indocarr , a police officer called Li Noor ( Indonesian actor Iko Uwais ) wants to surrender to the US embassy where James is now stationed . He has been in contact with CIA agent Alice Kerr ( Lauren Cohan ) and says that he has a disk that contains information as to where is the remaining cesium is . But he wants safe passage out of the country . Furthermore , the disk he gives will self destruct in 8 hours . So the CIA team have less than 8 hours to extract him out of the country , after which Li will give them the code for stopping the disk from self destructing and for extracting information from the disk .
But the government of Indocarr does not want LI to leave and tries to negotiate with the CIA to hand him to them . James refuses . But they have their agents in the US embassy and the agents try to assasinate Li . He surives this by showing supreme fighting skills that make you wonder where he learnt them . But they are still on Indocarr territory and the task to transport Li from the embassy to an airstrip where a plane is waiting to pick up Li is fraught with danger as the Indocarr government tries every trick in the book to stop the team . The airstrip is 22 miles away giving the name to the movie---Mile 22 .
Alice and James take up the assignment to escort Li to the plane along with other agents , but Alice is also having to deal with personal issues regarding her estranged husband and daughter in USA . And agents of the Indocarr government are waiting fully armed to stop and kill them on the way . As no holds barred fighting breaks out between the two antagonists , we are treated to some non stop action .
The weapons used for the action are high tech and the action happens at an electric pace . Bullets fly and bombs and grenades explode with abandon . There is place for hand to hand fighting too . The action happens in corridors of buildings and in restaurants . The command centre overviewing the operation has the ability to moniter the pulse and heart rate of their personnel ; one wonders who thought of that idea....
Mark looks dashing and Lauren looks beautiful with blue eyes and their faces remain remarkably clean even after all the fighting even as others in their team get their faces splattered with blood . But at the end of it all comes a twist . The twist is to obviously pave the way for a second movie of this franchise . But the twist also renders all the sacrifices the CIA team has made completely pointless .
The movie is watchable for the action sequences and mercifully the film is also short ; last for only 1 hour 36 minutes . Photography is good , especially shots taken fro the air , and colours are decent . Background music is appropriate for the situations . Acting by all is proper .
Verdict---Decent .
Three stars out of five .
