zardoz-13 Review of The Marine 4: Moving Target

The Marine 4: Moving Target (2015 Video)

Rat-A-Tat-Tat; Watch Their Blood Splat!

[8/10 · 28 April 2015]

"One in the Chamber" director William Kaufman's bullet-riddled actioneer "Marine 4: Moving Target" ranks as an above-average, old-fashioned shoot'em up about an ex-Marine who must protect a Department of Justice witness from dastardly villains. Clocking in at 85 minutes with minimal back-story, this R-rated action thriller is nimble and no-nonsensical from fade in to fade out. On his first day on the job with a civilian company of hired guns, Jack Carter (Mike 'The Miz' Mizanin of "Marine 3") has his hands full with a cynical dame, Olivia Tanis (Melissa Roxburgh of "Leprechaun: Origins"), who has the goods on a corrupt defense contractor named Genesis that sold defective bulletproof vests to the Marine Corps. Olivia doesn't trust anybody and for good reason after we learn that the team dispatched to safeguard her is dirty. Predictably, Olivia hates Jack, and they have a lively exchange of dialogue in the SUV before all Hell breaks loose and a trigger-happy shooter, Andrew Vogel (the skull-faced Josh Blacker of "Elysium") and his army of mercenaries take out everybody else except the traitor. Vogel and company show no qualms; they wipe out an entire police station in a small town in a hail of gunfire to eliminate Jack and Olivia. Eventually, when Olivia has a golden opportunity to flee from Jack on his instructions, she changes her mind about the jarhead and saves his bacon moments after Vogel's gunmen massacre everybody in the police station with extreme prejudice. The hot pursuit manhunt plunges our heroes and their adversaries into the woods and turns into a "First Blood" game of survival. Our hero contrives surprising bloody booby traps for the expendable villains. Mike 'The Miz' Mizanin makes a solid, sturdy hero. Blacker makes a suitably sinister opponent. Scenarist Alan B. McElroy offers some memorable but histrionic dialogue. "You either behind the gun or in front of it," Vogel says at one point. Furthermore, our brawny hero believes in battlefield salvage as he picks up his adversaries' weapons after he empties his own gun. Of course, the villains are near-miss marksmen when it comes to nailing the principals. As B-movies go, "Marine 4: Moving Target" delivers formulaic, standard-issue violence with a high body count but no nudity. Kaufman helms these far-fetched shenanigans with a nimble hand and the hand-to-hand combat scenes are gripping affairs.