Sniper: Special Ops

Steven Seagal plays Sergeant Jake Chandler, a sniper who leads a special ops team into a remote Afghan village to pull out a captured American congressman. The mission goes sideways fast, and Chandler ends up pinned down with a small group of survivors, fighting off Taliban fighters while waiting for a rescue that may never come. Fred Olen Ray directed and wrote the script, and the cast includes Tim Abell as Sergeant Victor 'Vic' Thomas Mosby, former WWE wrestler Rob Szatkowski as Vasquez, and military advisor Dale Dye as Lieutenant Colonel Jackson. The film arrived on April 3, 2016, from Steamroller Productions, Hybrid, and Voltage Pictures, running 84 minutes. It is a straight action-war picture with a heavy dose of survival drama, built around Seagal's stoic sniper persona. Shot on a modest budget, it skipped theaters and went straight to home video and streaming. Audience reaction has been rough: a 4.3 out of 10 from IMDb users, which puts it near the bottom of Seagal's filmography. Fans of his early work will recognize the formula, but the thin script and cheap production values keep it from landing with most viewers. [edit]

A U.S. congressman has been taken hostage by Taliban forces and is being held in a remote Afghan village. A special operations team is sent in to get him out. The unit is led by Sergeant Jake Chandler (Steven Seagal), a veteran sniper who works overwatch from a distance, and Sergeant Victor "Vic" Thomas Mosby (Tim Abell), who runs the ground assault. The team also includes Vasquez (Rob Szatkowski, better known as WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam), Cannon Rich (Daniel Booko), Marcus (Gerald Webb), Doc (Jeff Bosley), Miller (Matthew R. Anderson), Charlie (Paul Logan), and Tyler (Jason-Shane Scott). Back at command, Lieutenant Colonel Jackson (Dale Dye) monitors the operation, while Janet Conrad (Charlene Amoia) and the Taliban leader Bashir (Anthony Batarse) round out the key players.

The extraction is supposed to be a clean raid. Instead, the team walks into an ambush and the assault element is torn apart. Chandler and Mosby are left behind, pinned down and separated from the main force, with Taliban fighters closing in and the congressman still in enemy hands. The film then splits into two storylines. Chandler and a handful of survivors must hold their position in hostile territory, using the sniper's patience and marksmanship to stay alive against repeated assaults. Meanwhile, the surviving members of the unit back at base are told the men are lost and that no rescue is coming. Going back would mean disobeying orders. The sniper buddies decide to mount an unauthorized return mission anyway, setting up a race between a rescue force operating against orders and a besieged team running out of time, ammunition, and options.

Built around Seagal's stoic sniper persona, the film leans on long stretches of overwatch, tactical chatter, and firefights, punctuated by the tension of a rescue that may never arrive. It follows the "left behind" war-movie template closely, relying on Seagal's established screen image rather than elaborate set pieces. The Afghan setting is achieved on a modest budget typical of Fred Olen Ray's direct-to-video productions, with the action kept largely to small-unit skirmishes and a few larger confrontations.[edit]