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The Hunted - 3/14/03 - R - 117m
Tommy Lee Jones
- L.T. Bonham
Benicio Del Toro - Aaron Hallam
Connie Nielsen - Abbey Durrell
Director: William Friedkin
Screenplay: David and Peter Griffiths & Art Monterastelli
JEF
I know, how could you like a bad movie? And I’m usually
one of the first to complain about the lack of plot in a movie, that said,
it was all the other elements of the movie that made me like this one.
I won’t go so far as to give it a green light because if you stop
to think about the movie you’ll realize some gaping holes in the
storyline, but nonetheless, the action, and the acting of both Bencio
and Tommy Lee, was enough for me to walk out thinking it was a cool movie.
Rambo for 2003 comes to mind here.
Storyline: Benicio Del Toro played the role of Aaron,
who was a trained military killer. Specializing in hand-to-hand combat
with a knife. L.T. (Tommy Lee Jones) was the man who trained Aaron, and
was a sort of father figure to him. The movie opens in 1999 with a brutally
graphic sequence showing the elimination of Albanian citizens by Serbian
troops. This was probably the most difficult thing to watch in the entire
movie due to its basis in reality. Aaron is part of a special ops team
sent in to eliminate the Serbian commander who ordered the slaughter of
the Albanians. It becomes clear that Aaron was trained well in his ability
to stalk and hunt his prey. Now fast-forward to 2003, where Aaron appears
to be hunting some deer hunters in the woods of Oregon. It is somewhat
unclear why or how Aaron ended up in this situation. According to the
official website for this movie he was AWOL from the Special Forces, but
I did not pick this up from the movie. It is unclear if the two men are
hunting deer, or hunting Aaron. I think this was intentional, but a little
clarity would have helped. Aaron easily eliminates the two men in the
Oregon forest with ease, and brutality. In comes L.T.… a man living
in retirement who is approached by a high ranking military officer to
help with this problem of tracking and capturing Aaron. And the hunt begins...
The rest of the movie is a complicated “cat and mouse” game
of Aaron trying the stay one step ahead of his former teacher L.T.
The plot does have its faults. Things are unanswered and unclear throughout
the movie. Was Aaron AWOL? What was the reason for this AWOL? They hinted
at a botched job, or possible conspiracy, but then never answered those
questions. Was Aaron a crazy killing machine who was hunting deer hunters,
or were they all trained government agents that Aaron was simply eliminating
them as self-defense? Yet, I have to say I wasn’t really bothered
by this too much. It was more about the methods used by both men to hunt,
and avoid one another who were both trained professionals at hunting and
avoiding. Yes, Aaron made quite a few obvious mistakes and I’m sure
this was done for the benefit of the movie flowing, (i.e. if he never
made a mistake, then L.T. would never have been able to track him). There
were a lot of continuity problems in the movie as well, for example, in
a car chase scene Aaron rams his car head on into stopped cars and severely
damages the hood of his car, only in the next scene he leaves his car
to escape on foot and the hood is perfect. Other things like an escape
on a bicycle in a park on soft grass, Aaron jumps on the bike to ride
away, only to follow the same deep muddy tracks of the bike from a previous
take. And one scene I noticed where he throws his custom-made knife only
in the next scene to see him running and the knife is in the sheath on
his belt. So it’s things like that, that one needs to either overlook
or forgive.
Some of the knife fights between Tommy Lee and Benicio were very well
choreographed. According to IMDB the style is a martial art known as Kali
Knife Fighting. The attention to detail in regards to L.T.’s ability
to track Aaron was well done.
Bottom line… If your willing to forgive the continuity mistakes,
and the plot does not play too much of an important role, and you just
want to see a great cat and mouse game between to highly skilled military
soldiers running through various settings of deep woods, to the city,
to the suburbs, and having some great battle scenes, then give this movie
a shot.
I really think the plot could have been much better. Perhaps it was the
fault of the director that left too many holes that it all fell apart?
This could have been a really good movie.
Jef