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Rented this one the other day, it was better than I expected, but that's not saying much. It's the old "retired (in this case, discharged) expert called out for one more mission" story with a pretty obvious twist coming if you've seen enough of these.

Several things bugged me about the film. A couple characters making pointless sacrifices, just to eliminate them from the plot. A subplot involving Tom Berenger's character's eyesight starting to go disappears for no reason when it really would matter. Sloppy editing and continuity: Bokeem Woodbine carries an H&K MP5 submachine gun for much of the movie, but during a shootout, it turns into an AK with a scope mounted on it when he raises it to take aim at a foe (his MP5 didn't have a scope). It turns back into an MP5 after he shoots the guy and takes his rifle, the scoped AK in question. When he meets back up with Berenger, he has instead a different AK without a scope. He isn't seen killing anyone else or acquiring any other weapons in between the two scenes (maybe something was edited out).

One last gripe, when Berenger is shown his contacts' cache of weapons, he notes that they're all left over from WWII, even though lots of Soviet era AKs and such are easily seen. He's drawn to one rifle in particular, which he identifies as "a Mauser, 792" (according to the subtitles and the dialogue), like 792 is a model number or designation rather than a caliber. I guess he means a German Kar 98k in 7.92mm. I would normally let this pass but the rifle is clearly a Mosin-Nagant, a Russian rifle in 7.62mm x 54mm caliber, something Berenger character would clearly known with his long years of military service and sniper training.

Thanks for the review, Yaddo.  I saw this DVD unexpectedly while cruising through Walmart last weekend.  I almost picked it up since I loved the first Sniper, but thought against it, and figured I'd wait for some reviews.  All of the reviews I've read so far seem pretty unimpressed, so I might wait 'til this one hits the bargain bins.  I had no idea that the original Sniper was popular enough to warrant a sequel, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Nick

Good grief. I plan to buy a Nagant at the PRO gun show this sunday. Sheesh. What Barenger said about the rifle would, indeed, have been okey, if they had used the right gun....man, i hate lazy filmmakeing!

I don't know that the original SNIPER was that popular, although it does turn up on cable a lot and the DVD is still well stocked in most of the stores I buy from, pretty good for a 10 year old movie.

I'll bet that the popularity of ENEMY AT THE GATES had something to do with it, since parts of the action scenes in SNIPER 2 were very similar to that film.