Analysis Of The Movie: Shooter

Swagger assesses each of the locations given to him by Johnson and determines that a site in Philadelphia would be most conducive to a long range assassination attempt. He passes this information to Johnson, who purportedly arranges for a response. This turns out to be a set-up: while Swagger is working with Johnson’s agents-including a local police officer-to find the rumored assassin, the Ethiopian archbishop is instead assassinated while standing next to the president. Swagger is shot by the officer, but manages to escape. The agents tell the police and public that Swagger is the shooter, and stage a massive manhunt for the injured sniper. However, Swagger has a stroke of luck-he meets rookie FBI agent Nick Memphis (Peña), disables him and steals his car.

He is thus able to use the first aid supplies in the car to stanch his wounds and escape by driving into the river after an extended chase. He then takes refuge with Sarah Fenn (Mara), widow of Swagger’s late spotter and close friend Donnie Fenn, killed years before in a mission in Africa that saw Swagger himself barely surviving. She saves his life by cleaning and stitching Swagger’s gunshot wounds, and Swagger later convinces her to help him contact Memphis with information on the conspiracy. Memphis is blamed for allowing Swagger’s escape, and is disciplined for negligence. However, he has independently learned that Swagger may have been framed for the assassination by noticing several inconsistencies with the data and witness accounts given to the FBI by an unnamed federal agency.

Once the rogue agents realize their secret has been compromised, they kidnap Memphis and attempt to stage his suicide. Swagger tails the agents and kills Memphis’ captors with a scoped .22 rifle equipped with a homemade silencer. Swagger and Memphis then join forces against the rogue agents and visit a firearms expert (Levon Helm) living in Athens, Tennessee. Together they plot to capture who they think is the real assassin, an ex-sniper allied with Colonel Johnson. Once they find him in Lynchburg, Virginia, he commits suicide after revealing that the archbishop was actually the real target of the assassins, and he was murdered in order to prevent him from speaking out against U.S. involvement in the genocide of an Ethiopian village. The genocide occurred in order to advance the aims of a consortium of American corporate oil interests headed by corrupt U.S. Senator Charles Meachum (Beatty); Swagger learns that the mission where Fenn was killed was also a part of the genocide as they were tasked to cover the withdrawal of the contractors assigned to the job. Swagger records the ex-sniper’s confession as proof of the involvement in the African genocide, then with Memphis’s assistance is able to escape from the trap set to ensnare them by killing all 24 mercenaries.

Meanwhile, other rogue mercenaries have kidnapped Sarah Fenn in order to entrap Swagger. With his new evidence and cat-and-mouse strategy, Swagger and Memphis are able to rescue her when Colonel Johnson and Senator Meachum arrange a meeting to exchange their hostage for Swagger’s evidence of their wrongdoing. After killing several enemy snipers in an isolated mountain range and rescuing Sarah, Swagger and Memphis finally surrender to the FBI.

Information extracted from Wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooter_(film)

Later appearing in a closed meeting with the head of the FBI and the United States Attorney General present, he clears his name by loading a rifle round (supplied by Memphis) into his rifle (which is present as evidence as it was supposedly used in the killing), aiming it at the Colonel and pulling the trigger-which fails to fire the round. Swagger explains that every time he leaves his house, he replaces the firing pins from all his rifles with slightly shorter pins, rendering them unable to fire until he replaces them again. Unfortunately, although Swagger is exonerated, Colonel Johnson takes advantage of a legal loophole-the Ethiopian genocide is outside American legal jurisdiction-and walks free. The attorney general approaches Swagger and states that as a law enforcement official, he must abide by the law (he insinuates that if it was the wild west of before it would be appropriate to clean the system with a gun)-and Swagger is seen considering that statement. Afterwards, the Colonel and the Senator plan their next power play in the Senator’s vacation house-only to be interrupted by Swagger attacking the house. He kills both conspirators, one of the Colonel’s aides and two bodyguards, then breaks open a gas valve before leaving. The fire in the fireplace ignites the gas, blowing up the house. The final scene shows Swagger getting into a car with Fenn and driving away.

Influencing Others

Influence refers to any behaviour that attempts to alter someone’s attitudes or behaviour. Influcen is power in motion. It applies one or more power bases to get people to alter their beliefs, feelings and activities. In order to do so, the person who influences others use influence tactics. Influence tactics are woven throught the social fabric of all organizations. This is because influence is an essential process through which people coordinate their effort and act in concert to achieve organizational objectives. There are seven types of influence tactics which are silent authority, assertiveness, information control, coalition formation, upward appeal, ingratiation/impression management, persuasion and exchange. The first five are known as hard influence tactics because they force behaviour change through position power. The latter three are called soft tactics because they rely more on personal sources of power and appeal to the target person’s attitudes and needs.

In the movie “Shooter”, there is a scene when Mark Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger in the movie was influenced by Danny Glover who plays Colonel Issac Johnson to perform a certain task. Mark Wahlberg was alerted as some men approach his cabin. Danny Glover introduces himself to Mark Wahlberg, showing off his own medal of honour but tension ascends. Mark Wahlberg is not interested in talking. Tension escalates when Elias Koteas reaches slowly down to his gun and Mark readies a hidden blade. Danny calms the situation, convincing Mark to give him five minutes. Danny explains that they have received information about a planned assassination attempt on the president and they’ve turned for help to Mark. One of their few intelligence clues is that the assassin’s shot will be taken from over a mile, a shot which few men can make. Still Mark insists that he wants nothing to do with the plan, but Johnson persuaded. Feelings of patriotism or perhaps habit begin to change Mark’s mind. Finally, Mark agrees to assist Danny in his task.

From the scene, the tactic that Danny used was persuasion. He presented logical arguments to persuade Mark to join him in the task to hunt down the assassin who wanted to kill the president. Danny knew that Mark was a man with expertise of sniping and he was someone who would fight for the country. Danny demonstrated credibility as such that he was not benefiting anything from this offer to Mark. Besides that, Danny used the best way to persuade Mark that is through a face-to-face conversation.

The Perceptual Process

Reality is filtered through an imperfecet perceptual process. This imperfect process begins when environmental stimuli are received through our senses. The resulting perceptions influence our conscious emotions and behaviour towards those objects, people and events. The environmental stimuli include feeling, hearing, seeing, smelling and tasting. This leads to selective attention, perceptual organization and interpretation and attitudes and behaviour.

In the movie “Shooter”, Mark scouts each location. He walks every corner of the venue and scouts for each and every surveillance camera of the surrounding area. He then reports back to Danny that the likely location of the assassination is Philadelphia. Danny wants Mark there to help catch the assassin. On the day of the president’s speech, snipers are everywhere, along with some federal agents. Swagger stands in nearby office with Danny and his accomplice. Danny claims the shooter is in a church tower nearby and says that they will take him down just after the president begins to speak. The president is scheduled to speak immediately after the Arch Bishop of Ethiopia, who is accepting an award. As the president approaches the stand, Mark urges Danny to have his men take down the shooter immediately, but at that moment events pitch forward the Arch Bishop is shot in the head, and a police officer fires on Mark, catching him in the shoulder. Mark falls out of a window, landing hard on a glass ceiling below. The policeman then leans out and shoots Mark in the stomach, driving him through the glass ceiling. Mark manages to get away while limping on the road. The policeman is ordered by Danny to take Mark down.

In this scene, there are a few of perceptual process instances. Danny uses categorical thinking and appoints Mark to assist them in hunting down the assassin. This is because Mark has the similarities of a highly skilled sniper. Besides that, Mark has the characteristics of the perceiver. When information is received our senses, our brain quickly and unconsciously assesses whether it is relevant or irrelevant to us. In this scence, Mark uses his senses to think which area would be best suited to commit an assassination. He then anticipates the future events and uses his logical thinking to picture out how the assassin would react in a situation like that. Mental models are the broad worldviews that people rely on to guide their perceptions and behaviours. In this scene, Mark uses mental models and creates a mental image of how the assassination of the president would occur.

Organizational politics

By definition Organizational politics is behaviours that others perceive as self serving tactics for personal gain at the expense of other people and possibly the organization. Sometimes Influence tactics are said to be related to Organizational politics. Reason being influence tactics are said to be the Organizational politics when one party seem to benefit the perpetrators at the expense of others and usually the entire organization or work unit.

In this movie, at the last scene where in a closed meeting with the head of the FBI and the United States Attorney General present, Mark Wahlberg attempts he clears his name. Before the meeting starts Colonel Johnson raises the question why he is brought in the meeting and mentions to the Attorney General that he is covered and request the Attorney General to call the Joint Chief. The Attorney General replies that that would not be necessary as he has already receive close to a dozen of call from highly ranked and powerful people to let Colonel Johnson go. However the Attorney General insisted that the joy of check and balance in the jurisdiction system in the United States prevents him to do so. Hence those requests will not be entertained.

In this scene, indicates a clear organizational politics games played by Colonel Johnson. He has made arrangements with the Senator who contacted his powerful and highly ranked counterparts to call the Attorney General to let Colonel Johnson go. Clearly the organizational politics tactics that has been used by Colonel Johnson to get free of any charges is at the expense of Mark Wahlberg who however later during the meeting proves his innocence by loading a rifle round (supplied by Memphis) into his rifle (which is present as evidence as it was supposedly used in the killing), aiming it at the Colonel and pulling the trigger-which fails to fire the round. Mark Wahlberg explains that every time he leaves his house, he replaces the firing pins from all his rifles with slightly shorter pins, rendering them unable to fire until he replaces them again. In a nutshell Colonel Johnson used Mark Wahlberg to attain their agenda of assassinating the Bishop by manipulation and influences as described on the synopsis.

From a different angel, this indicates a misuse of power by the Senator who also played Organizational politics to influence his counterparts to do according to what he says. Organization politics can in this example perceived a negative event, with people with power misusing them.

Emotional Labor

The effort, planning and control needed to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions are known as Emotional Labor. When interacting with Co-workes, suppliers and others, employees are expected to abide by the abide rules. These rules are norms requiring employees to display certain emotions and withhold others. Emotional labor can be challenging for most of us because it is difficult to conceal true emotions and to display the emotions by the job.

In the movie emotional labor was observed in many different scenes. One example of it was when FBI agent Nick Memphis is in the FBI main office and waiting to get into an “Authorized Personal Only” room. Clearly he did not have the authority to enter the room, hence he was waiting by the door drinking water. In actual fact he was about to break a rule in the company, and if caught he could be suspended, hence his emotions at that point was probably very nervous and cautious. However when he was standing near the “Authorized Personal Only” room, he was displaying a normal casual look whilst drinking water. This is probably to avoid anybody in the office to suspect anything, after all he is a FBI agent, and that office is full with agents who catch the bad guys. The moment an FBI agent came out of the room, before the door closes Nick Memphis stormed in to the room, and immediately his true emotions was displayed on his face, nervousness and guilt inside his room. This shows he was exercising Emotional labor, to display a needed emotion in a situation whilst hiding his true emotions.

Another example of Emotional labor that was observed was when Nick Memphis was talking to another FBI agent near her cubicle. The topic they were discussing were again something that Nick Memphis was not supposed to know. However using some influence tactics he managed to get the other FBI agent to share some classified information with him. However since they were in an open area, whenever there were people walking by the area, they would change the topic of conversation and the expression on their faces changes as though they were having casual chat. However when was nobody passing by, they would get back into their actual conversation. In this scenario also the two FBI agent practices Emotional labor which was to display the desired emotions which was causal normal facial expression when ever somebody passed by to prevent any overhearing and suspicions.

Job specialization

Job specialization occurs when the work required building or any other product or service is subdivided into separate job assigned to different people. Each resulting job includes a narrow subset of tasks, usually completed in a short cycle time. The job specialization would able to improve work efficiency. One reason why job specialization potentially increases work efficiency is that employees have fewer tasks to juggle and therefore spend less time changing activities. They also require fewer physical and mental skills to accomplish the assigned work, so less time and resources are needed for training. A third reason is that employees practice their tasks more frequently with shorter work cycles, so jobs are mastered quickly. A fourth reason why work efficiency increases are that employees with specific aptitudes or skills can be matched more precisely to the jobs for which they are best suited.

The limelight of the movie “Shooter” is the main actor i.e. Mark Wahlberg who is the best professional sniper in town. He became an ex-army sniper mainly attributed by his death of his best friend and the whole team that decided to abandon them during the ambush by the enemies.

However, due to his well known expertise he has been search again by Danny Glover who plays Colonel Johnson and he acknowledge that Mark is the best “sniper” that he ever encountered. This further endorses Mark’s position since Danny insisted that the special assignment i.e. to assassinate the US president be given to Mark only.

The movie focuses also on how skilful Mark can be as a professional sniper where firstly, he research of the places/states where President normally visits. He made an observation to each of the surrounding area such how busy the location is, where the surveillance camera were located and so forth. After collating all the necessary information, he re-assesses the tools/equipment in order to be used for the assassination of the US presidents. As we can see from this movie, people with very specific job specialization has draw backs as well. In this case, Mark was easily being manipulated by Colonel Johnson to assist him plot the Bishops assassination without him realising.

Team Cohesiveness

It is a degree of attraction people feel toward the team and their motivation to remain members – is an important element in a team’s success. Staffs feel cohesiveness when they believe their team will help them to achieve their personal goals, fulfil their need for affiliation or status, or provide a social support during times of crisis or trouble. Cohesiveness is an emotional experience, not just a calculation of whether to stay or leave the team. It exists when team members make the team part of their social identity. Adding on, it is the glue or esprit de corps that holds/unite the group together and ensures that its members fulfil their obligations.

The above theory can be witnessed in the beginning of the movie scene where how between Mark Wahlberg and his best friend were well plan and coordinated to kill their target. This scene had really reflected the highly team spirit and cooperation between the duos. In this scene, Mark is the one who shoots the target while waiting for the instruction code from his best friend.

After the ambush failed, Mark’s best friend requested the troop team permission to retreat their position. However, the troop leader had betrayed them by not rescuing them. Mark assuring his best friend that they will be rescued no matter what and in no time they will be on their way home. It clearly shows on how he is loyal and supportive toward his own best friend.