MOVIE - THE HUNTED - Review Rating $$ (OUT OF 10)
STARRING - Tommy Lee Jones (L.T.), Benicio Del Toro (Aaron Hallam), Connie Nielsen, Jenna Boyd, Leslie Stefanson & Robert Blanche.
DIRECTOR - William Friedkin (Rules of Engagement, The Exorcist, The French Connection).
A battle stressed Special Forces veteran loses his grasp on reality and the only guy capable of bringing him in is the man who trained him to be a killing machine.
If you remember the movies "Rambo" (Sylvester Stallone) and "The Fugitive" then you've already seen the much better movies that The Hunted borrows heavily from and poorly mimics.
To update the Rambo story, Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro), is sent on a mission to Kosovo to assassinate a particularly brutal enemy military commander. This sequence, pivotal to establishing the source of Hallman's battle stress, is quite simply pathetic. The military realism of the sequence pales in comparison to similar opening sequences in numerous other war based movies (i.e. Saving Private Ryan). The little girl, walking through a pile of dead bodies clutching her blood soaked teddy bear, is such a blatant attempt to earn the audience's sympathy that it backfires and produces derision instead of compassion.
The Hunted then immediately cuts away to introduce L.T. (Tommy Lee Jones). The nature of his persona, softhearted expert woodsman/tracker, is established by having L.T. track a wounded wolf and remove the snare around his leg.
I'm not sure its possible to have more clichés in the first 10 minutes of a movie. Apparently, the screenwriters thought it was enough because without further ado, or explanation, the killing begins.
Hallman has become a one man PETA hit squad doing unto hunters what they do unto animals. Of course, and you knew this was coming, L.T. must be coaxed into assisting with the investigation/manhunt. What little credibility The Hunted has left goes out the window at this point.
When L.T. arrives at the remote wooded location, where the latest killings took place, there are FBI agents on horseback but no bloodhounds or other tracking dogs. Horses at a remote wooded location....please. The reason the FBI doesn't have any dogs on scene has two possible explanations 1) severe budget cuts or 2) the lack of dogs is necessary so L.T. can get down on all fours and crawl through the woods like one.
The rest of the movie resembles the instructions on your bottle of shampoo (Wet hair, lather, rinse, repeat). We are treated to increasingly incredible chase, capture, escape, sequences. Though L.T. and Hallman suffer numerous significant injuries, during these sequences, neither man's martial arts prowess appears to be hindered. The fight scenes are also characterized by a lot of grunting. So much grunting, in fact, the audience could be excused for thinking the soundtrack came from an "Adult" film.
The script for The Hunted required rewrites. What the screenwriters forgot, besides dialogue and character development, was to create a hero to hope for. Rent Rambo and you'll understand what I mean. At the end of that movie the audiences were cheering Rambo's exploits. In The Hunted you are left to hope a crazed assassin lives to kill more hunters or that the guy who trained him, to kill, can capture/kill his pupil. That's not much of a choice. If The Hunted is just a typical action thriller than it has forgotten the golden rule that such movies need a true hero. If The Hunted, which starts and ends with reference to a biblical passage, is seeking to be a more significant examination of the subject of the blurred line between good and evil it is a dismal failure. Either way, save your money, its not worth the price of admission.
The Hunted is just plain bad.
Running time: 96 minutes
Alternative Reviews:
Roger Ebert's Review
Daniel C. Kasman's Review
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews
The Hunted Official Website
|
© Copyright
2003
David Schwartz.
Last update:
8/9/03; 11:07:40 PM.
This theme is based on the SoundWaves
(blue) Manila theme. |
|
