KCR: Kill Zone (sniper, war, novel)

Sgt. Jack Coughlin is the best shooter in Iraq, and now, he has turned to novel writing. The problem is this conspiracy stuff doesn't quite work, and the plot later makes even less sense. It's too contrived.

Premise: the top general in Iraq was kidnapped. He was scheduled to testify against a congressional act to privatize a lot of the military (i.e. mercenaries). A rescue mission sent in met with severe mishap... the chopper crashed. One sniper survive the crash: gunnery sergeant Kyle Swanson. He had received a secret order from the Whitehouse... Terminate the general if he cannot be rescued. Swanson, however, rescues the general, with help of a highly advanced sniper scope called Excaliber. However, there are a few secrets in that scope as well. There is also a conspiracy up to silence Swanson, and anybody related to him by the backer of mercenary bill. Can Swanson accomplish his mission, and expose the conspiracy?

Frankly, the conspiracy is so ****ing large it boggles the mind. We're talking about conspiracy that has mercenary units that is perfectly willing to shoot down military planes, all around the US AND the world, kidnap and assassinate VIPs in and out of the US, connections in various other Middle East countries, and more. It's **** crazy. Why would a company with this much power bother with a simple bill through US congress?

Sort of worth reading, but not worth buying.

Related articles

• KCR: Shooter (autobiography, sniper, non-fiction, war) (crankyreviews.blogspot.com)
• KCR: A Deeper Blue, Paladin of Shadows #5 (novel, terrorism, hero) (crankyreviews.blogspot.com)

KCR: Blue Thunder (movie, Police, Conspiracy)

Cover of Blue Thunder (Special Edition)Blue Thunder, a movie that came out in 1983, still holds up today as one of the best helicopter movies ever made for the big screen (Please don't even MENTION that piece of **** "Firebirds")

The setup: Frank Murphy (Rob Schneider) is a LAPD helicopter pilot chosen to test an armed police helicopter named "Blue Thunder", which has a few tricks like turbo mode, whisper mode, and some great microphone and heat-tracking cameras. However, his nemesis Colonel Cochrane (Malcoln McDowell) is the chief test pilot. One night, while testing the chopper, Murphy used the chopper to follow Cochrane, and listened to (and recorded) proof of a conspiracy... which made him a target. He was able to escape with the tape, but his observer was killed. He must steal Blue Thunder and escort his wife to a TV station with the tape where the truth will be revealed... When the entire LAPD, and even the military, will be up against him... and finally, Colonel Cochrane himself, in another gunship... in an aerial duel in the skies of downtown Los Angeles...

For a movie about an object, Blue Thunder itself sure showed up late, but that gives us a chance to learn about the characters and thus, to care about them. Murphy is on the edge of breakdown, Lymangood is new and enthusiastic, and Cochrane is sufficiently creepy to be a "bad guy". When the action starts, you know it won't stop. In a way, the plot is very reminiscent of Star Wars plot... setup, setup, setback, setup, then non-stop action, still ramping up, up, and up, until the big finish.

The special effects are lousy by today's standards, but there is little camera trickery here. It's either models and stock footage, or just cutting and splicing scenes. No CGI back then, and it's still good enough.

If you haven't seen it, you missed a lot. Even if you have seen it, the "making of" featurettes are worth watching too. How else will you learn that Malcoln McDowell was actually afraid of helicopters?

Rating: Rent it, at least once!

KCR: Tom Clancy's HAWX

This book is simply poorly written, and it's clear that David Michaels is not a single person, but a pseudonym assumed by a variety of writers hired by Ubisoft to pump out novelizations in order to capitalize on their own games. Some of the Splinter Cell novels are quite good. This book simply is lousy.

The plot, created by Tom Clancy and his minions, are a bit of alarmist but fine... Basically, private military corporations, i.e. mercenaries, are made legal and takes over quite a bit of actual operations... at a price. A certain air force pilot was RIFed (i.e. let go) he joined a PMC called Firehawk, then CIA asked him to keep an eye out on Firehawk, which may not be quite up and up. What he finds out later will have serious consequences not only for himself, but for the entire United States...

The plot makes sense, but the characters are shallow, and some of the technical details are wrong. Clearly, Ubisoft and Red Storm have no technical editors to spare on this project. This book is a major disappointment.

KCR: The Enemy, a Jack Reacher novel (novel, crime)

Cover of The Enemy (Jack Reacher, No. 8)The Enemy is about Jack Reacher's earlier career, when he was still in the military. The year was 1990, when US is about to invade Panama. Reacher was just ordered to this base in command of the MPs, when a 2-star general was found dead in a motel, and his briefcase is missing. No one knows what he's doing there or what's in the briefcase. A few hours later, general's wife was found dead as well... then other people started to die... And Reacher found himself up against a conspiracy that threatens all he stood for, reaching higher than he imagined. However, the enemies underestimated Reacher... Because Reacher will never quit, even if he had to go around the world and reach to the top of the Army for some answers...

"The Enemy" is a bit slow at parts, but then I found most mysteries to be slow. However, pacing is better in this novel, with the body count steadily adding up, and a lot of red herrings but a lot of clues as well. People don't say what they mean, so you have to go by actions and what they reveal by what they do NOT say. There are a lot of locations, and Reacher also gets to recount a bit of family history (apparently, his mom was in the French Resistance in WW2).

I'd say this is one of the better Jack Reacher novels. Worth reading at least once.

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• Killing Floor, by Lee Child (mrsaubergine.wordpress.com)
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