Mile 22 (2018)

Mile 22 arrives as the fourth collaboration between Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg, and it carries itself with the grim efficiency of a tactical briefing. The casting is notably international: Iko Uwais, Poorna Jagannathan, and a rotating roster of operatives from various backgrounds fill out the unit. This diversity sits quietly in the background, a matter of who happened to be available for a shootout in a fictional Southeast Asian nation. The film does not pause to comment on it, and in fairness we should not demand that it does. There is a small measure of cultural awareness here, mostly in a setting loosely modeled on Indonesia, but the script treats that setting as a backdrop for gunfire and little else.

The women in the unit, played by Lauren Cohan and Ronda Rousey, handle themselves with competence and are permitted to die bravely. That is the extent of the gender conversation. No critique of institutional patriarchy surfaces, no reckoning with the dynamics of a male-dominated intelligence apparatus. On race, the film is similarly incurious. A fictional country stands in for a real one, and the story never bothers to examine identity, power, or the legacy of anything. The political commentary that exists arrives through the plot, a few cynical asides about corrupt agencies and shadowy handlers, delivered between explosions instead of from a lectern.

The remainder of the ledger is bare. There is no queer presence, no environmental conscience, no critique of wealth or capital, no interest in body image, no neurodivergent characters, and no attempt to revise the historical record. The film wants only to move fast and hit hard, which it does with a handheld camera and a great deal of shouting. As a specimen of social consciousness, it is a thin vintage. As an action picture, it is a thin vintage too.