You hate to start the year reviewing a bad C-movie aiming for B-status, but that’s the state of the cinema between Christmas and that first weekend after New Year’s.

“Sniper: G.R.I,T.” is the latest in a series of glib, violent and dumb “Sniper” action pictures starring Chad Michael Collins and built on a tsunami of sniper “head shots” as action beats.

This time, his crew, named “G.R.I.T.” for Global Rescue & Intellegence Team, is in the spotlight for a matter of some mayhem in Malta.

I’ll bet the financing, incentive cash, etc. that got this picture made is more interesting than anything on the screen.

A blast of exposition introduces that “team,” led by Gabriel Stone (Dennis Haysbert) and their quarry — rescuing a missing comrade, Yuki, a.k.a. “Lady Death” (Luna Fujimoto) from the clutches of the cultish State of Aragon that Malta has become.

It’s led by a plumb, guru-ish Bond villain named Bubalo (Paul Kissaun, as menacing as a stoner department store Santa). He and his minions must be murdered so that Yuki can be brought back into the fold at G.R.I.T.

Ryan Robbins is here as the shooter’s local language-learning (just a single phrase, a running gag) wiseguy/sidekick.

“Who are you,” a future-target asks?

“The Piper! And your balance is long overdue!”

A lot of the dialogue is an attempt to manage that level of wit, and failing.

There are I.T. guys (Josh Brener is one), necessary in any modern picture of this genre. And that Lady Death is a badass martial artist who looks good doing sweep-kicks in her leather pants, boots and long, billowing red overcoast. That’s usually a plus.

But the fights and action beats seldom rise to “adequate,” the stunt-work lets us see how hard it is to get stunt fights right.

And by the end, we’ve figured out why the violence of choice is a gun-shot to the head. A simple, singular effect, repeated dozens of times, never cleverly, is a lot less trouble than working out fight choreography and doing the takes to make it sting.

When your plot is crap and your location may be your biggest selling point, that’s what you do.

Collins makes a bland lead, with Robbins’ never letting us forget that he’s the “tries too hard” sidekick and none of them have even a shadow of the presence Haysbert does. And he must be asking himself what he’s doing in anything this junky.

But Malta still looks like a bucket-list vacation.

Rating: R, violence, sexual innuendo, profanity

Cast: Chad Michael Collins, Luna Fujimoto, Ryan Robbins, Josh Brener,
Toshiji Takeshima, Paul Kissaun and Dennis Haysbert

Credits: Scripted and directed by Oliver Thompson, a Sony film, a Netflix release.

Running time: 1:31