Theatrical
Release: March 14, 2003 by Kevin Lang Imagine a movie stripped away of everything that could have made it interesting and worth watching. This was "The Hunted," the latest film from William Friedkin, who has directed such classics as "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist." "The Hunted," which starred Benicio Del Toro ("Traffic" 2000) and Tommy Lee Jones ("Men in Black" 1997), attempted to tell the story of a battle stressed soldier gone mad. Del Toro played the killing machine, Aaron Hallam, who had been trained to be a lethal weapon by Jones's character, L.T. Bonham, and of course Bonham was the only one who could possibly stop the crazed ex-soldier. Hallam's first victims were two supposed hunters in the woods, who he killed and gutted like deer. This began the massive manhunt that lasted the entire movie, which could have worked if it wasn't for the fact that there was no real story to go along with the catch-me-if-you-can plot. There were signs of hope, but they never manifested into anything. Two agents transporting Hallam began talking about some kind of failed assignment that Hallam was supposed to accomplish where he ended up killing the two hunters instead, hunters that Hallam seemed to think weren't really hunters. This sparked my curiosity until I began to realize that nothing further was going to be revealed about this minimally developed plot element. Maybe the hunters were really agents trying to locate and kill Hallam. It's impossible to guess. It probably would have made for a much better story though, but I guess an actual storyline would have been too top secret to divulge. It wasn't just the lack of story that bothered me. Much of the story that was present seemed highly improbable, from Jones's Bonham caring for a large overly friendly wolf at the beginning to Hallam forging a steel weapon in the woods near the end. Sometimes we can overlook one of these things in a story, but there were far too many here. It wasn't just the improbability of the character's actions that bothered me. It was also the lack in the logic behind them, such as at the end where Bonham makes a weapon as well. This would have likely taken a little bit of time to do. Why wouldn't Bonham have brought a knife or a gun with him, especially when he was going after a highly trained killer? In the end, "The Hunted" was a poorly written skeleton of a movie that offered little to nothing to take away when it was over except several mildly entertaining fight sequences. Tommy Lee Jones was back in his usual role of chasing criminals. This time was his worst effort to date, in a film that's not even worthy of being compared to 1993's "The Fugitive." I wish so many disappointing movies wouldn't come out this time of the year, but I guess Hollywood wants our full attention on its Oscar contenders. "The Hunted" Review written March 13, 2003, CTF. |
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