By George Haerle

For The Daily World

If you hear the sound of screaming inside your head about 45 minutes into Peter Berg’s “Mile 22,” it’s probably just the sound of your brain cells dying horrible deaths.

An elite CIA team must transport a police officer through a 22-mile stretch of an Indonesian city for the sake of information he has on chemical-based WMDs. Between them and the extraction point are a ton of gun-wielding goons who want the cop dead.

Mark Wahlberg proves his declining relevance once again, playing an over-the-top U.S. intelligence officer who leads an elite unit of what every synopsis of the film describes as a “tactical command team/unit.” But for the sake of the rest of the article, let’s just call them what the filmmakers won’t: These guys are black ops.

There are a significant number of problems with “Mile 22.” The first 30 to 40 minutes drag for what is supposed to be an action thriller. Wahlberg’s character is the least likable amongst a group of undeveloped throwaways, including John Malkovich, WWE star Ronda Rousey and Lauren Cohan of “The Walking Dead” fame.

Wahlberg’s James Silva is a mile-a-minute-talking aggressive alpha male whose every other line is insulting or berating his teammates while he seems to do almost nothing. Silva drops the F-bomb so many times that he gives Joe Pesci’s “Goodfellas” performance a run for its money. His character is also prone to violence, which supposedly contributes to the effectiveness of his job.

Cohan isn’t much better. In fact, she’s as outright terrible and angry as Wahlberg’s character, only with significantly less yelling. Malkovich is the information guy, feeding Silva’s team intel with a technical team, and is just another angry guy in a picture full of angry people.

Then we come to Iko Uwais as the mission asset: Li Noor, a low-level Indonesian cop who, for some reason, has info on the location of the missing WMDs stolen by Russians. Uwais has a resume of martial arts action and expertise, showcased in the awesome foreign action film “The Raid,” but unlike that significantly better action movie, Uwais is wasted here. His martial arts scenes are cut so poorly in favor of bloody killshots and heavy impacts with inanimate objects, his fight scenes are done a complete disservice.

But the film’s biggest problem is what it tries to be. “Mile 22” seems like Peter Berg’s chance to glorify an obvious far-right-wing ideology with an action movie that almost screams “Violence is the answer to everything!” At multiple points, it’s implied that this unit of black ops assassins represents the most ideal response to America’s biggest problems.

This incredibly aggressive team is not a group of people to be worshipped; yet Berg’s film treats these people as heroes, referring to them as “the least understood unit” and their actions as a “higher form of patriotism” within the movie. There’s no real pause of consequences or criticism of their profession, and the anger issues that clearly plague two of the lead characters — including Silva’s mental disorder, which gives him a predilection toward rage — are portrayed as ideal and positive qualities.

The movie is also plastered with visual and auditory nods to the Trump administration. At one point, for example, Wahlberg’s character says something like “You think you know the definition of collusion?” And Malkovich’s character keeps a bunch of presidential bobbleheads in the team’s intelligence command center, with the camera having a consistent predilection toward the MAGA hat-wearing Trump figure.

Finally, the movie has one of the worst endings this critic has ever seen. It makes the whole film a pointless outing — and, almost offensively, the filmmakers set things up for a sequel.

Watching this film is practically insulting. Though it’s only 94 minutes, you will probably feel every moment as the movie limps along while inundating you with gunfire. It’s every bit as much of a running of the gauntlet for the audience as it is for the characters trying to survive a 22-mile stretch of bullet-ridden hostility.

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“Mile 22” is currently playing at the Riverside Cinemas, 1017 S. Boone St. in Aberdeen.

George Haerle holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing for media and lives in Cosmopolis.