Sniper 2

Sniper 2
Directed by	Craig R. Baxley
Produced by	J.S. Cardone Carol Kottenbrook
Written by	Michael Frost Beckner (characters) Crash Leyland Ron Mita Jim McClain
Starring	Tom Berenger Bokeem Woodbine Erika Marozsán Dan Butler Linden Ashby Dennis Hayden
Music by	Gary Chang
Cinematography	David Connell
Editing by	Sonny Baskin
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date(s)	18 March 2003
Running time	91 min.
Country	United States
Language	English, Hungarian
Budget	$5,000,000 (estimated)

Sniper 2 is an American film shot in Hungary in November 2002 and released in early 2003. It stars Tom Berenger, Bokeem Woodbine, Erika Marozsán and Tamás Puskás, and was directed by Craig R. Baxley.

Sniper 2 is the second movie of a trilogy, following Sniper in 1993 and followed by Sniper 3 in 2004.

Plot

Former U.S. Marine Corps scout sniper Thomas Beckett (Tom Berenger), who was discharged after his finger was amputated in the first film, is met by CIA officer James Eckles (Dan Butler) and Colonel David McKenna (Linden Ashby) at his home in Montana. Despite losing his index finger he uses to shoot, Beckett still has the capability of firing a gun (as he uses his middle finger for the job). Considering this, along with his impressive career from his time in the Marine Corps, Beckett is given a mission to assassinate renegade Serbian General Mile Valstoria (Peter Linka), who is responsible for conducting hit-and-run ethnic cleansing operations in Muslim-populated areas in Serbia. The CIA fears that Valstoria's actions are threatening to inflame a larger conflict in the region. Given the details of the mission, Beckett requests that an additional man, a spotter, must come with him. At the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Beckett is introduced to his spotter, Jake Cole (Bokeem Woodbine), an experienced U.S. Army sniper who is on death row for killing a federal officer who allegedly betrayed Cole's unit and had them killed during a mission to crack down on Russian drug lords in Rostock. But Cole is released and offered amnesty if he takes part in the mission.

After being dropped off into Serbia, Beckett and Cole make their way to a Catholic basilica. There, they meet an underground resistance member named Sophia (Erika Marozsán). Sophia takes them to her apartment, which is perched high above the designated area where Valstoria is due to show up, near a government building. The next morning, Beckett assassinates his target. Even though the two men were far from Valstoria and used a diversionary device to cover the sound of the shot, the Serbs are able to track where the shot came from by noticing the smoke from the diversionary device that exploded. Noticing this, Beckett and Cole escape from the apartment before the Serbs are able to take them down. Cole and Beckett then move out to a nearby church that was meant to be a rendezvous point with Sophia, but the rendezvous is called off as Serb soldiers inspect the church unexpectedly. Cole and Beckett are forced to find an alternative plan. When they hitch a ride on a public tram, nearby soldiers stop the vehicle and try to arrest them, but the two operatives take over the tram and ram it into some police cars. They escape, running through the streets. Cole is captured and put into a prison where Valstoria's men keep their so-called 'special enemies', but Beckett is able to escape.

Beckett meets Sophia that night, and the two make a plan to rescue Cole. With the help of Sophia's brothers, Zoran and Vojislav, the next day they box in military trucks carrying Cole and a fellow prisoner to a prison in Požarevac where Cole was to be executed. Beckett takes a concealed shot, killing the passenger while Sophia kills the driver. They then help Cole and Pavel (Tamás Puskás), who is a pacifist and political dissident, and a fellow prisoner out of the truck and into a van that Zoran brought. Cole admits to Beckett that the assassination of Valstoria was set up to get Cole caught and then rescue Pavel from jail. The rescue of Pavel turned out to be the real mission for the two but Beckett was not informed by the CIA of it, as the mission was meant for Cole to solely execute after being captured. That night, at an abandoned factory that was meant to be the designated extraction zone, the group is ambushed by Serb tank and infantry. Both Vojislav and Zoran are killed in the attack and, after escaping from the factory through a sewer, Beckett orders Sophia to break off from the group and leave, despite objections from Cole. After hearing no information on Beckett or Cole's status after the factory extraction point was compromised, Eckles insists on calling off the operation, but this request is turned down. Instead, the leaders of the operation prepare for picking up Pavel and the two operatives at the secondary extraction point of Simand, a Muslim border town that was subject to ethnic cleansing.

A distance away from the factory, Pavel insists that they should head to Komra, a Muslim town where a friend of Pavel's, Nauzad (Zoltán Seress), lives. As the group meets Nauzad, he offers to help get the men to the border by getting them to a bus that would get them there. Within a couple of hours they are on their way but, as they cross a river, they come across an unexpected checkpoint and end up heading to Simand on foot. Meanwhile, Cpt. Marks (Can Togay) inspects the bus that the three men just departed from and suspects that they are attempting to head to Simand. Marks orders a tracker, (Béla Jáki), to take his special forces unit to Simand.

As the three men arrive at Simand, they are ambushed by the special forces team in a forest outside of town, and Pavel suffers a slight flesh wound in the arm. After the trio kills the entire team, they are forced to proceed into town. They disguise themselves by taking uniforms from some of the dead Serb soldiers, in case the Serbs set up a military presence in the town. However, even though the Serbs have not arrived yet, the tracker holds up in the town factory and snipes down the team. Beckett demands that Cole take Pavel to the extraction zone while he deals with the tracker. Cole is severely wounded by the sniper, but Beckett picks him off. Pavel and Becket carry the wounded Cole into the helicopter and leave, just as Serb reinforcements led by Cpt. Marks arrive. In the helicopter, Beckett and Pavel look at Cole as he is badly wounded. Cole says, "Freedom!" and succumbs to his wounds.

Cast

• Tom Berenger as Master Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Beckett
• Bokeem Woodbine as Cole
• Tamás Puskás as Pavel
• Dan Butler as Eckles
• Linden Ashby as McKenna
• Erika Marozsán as Sophia
• Barna Illyés as Vojislav
• Ferenc Kovács as Zoran
• Dennis Hayden as Klete
• Can Togay as Captain Marks
• Béla Jáki as Scar Sniper
• László Áron as Shadow Figure
• Lukács Bicskey as Inmate
• Zoltán Seress as Nauzad
• Tas Szöllösi as Tony
• Rae Valentine as Technician #1

Response

The movie has been criticized for a lot of technical flaws, for example: The Serbs in the movie were speaking Hungarian rather than Serbian (as the actors playing the Serbs were all Hungarian and Cole spoke jiberish instead of Hungarian).

External links

• Sniper 2 at the Internet Movie Database
• Sniper 2 at AllRovi
• Sniper 2 at the TCM Movie Database