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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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The
Hunted
(Paramount Home Entertainment)
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| DVD
Release Date:
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August
12, 2003
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Length:
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94 mins.
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| Rated:
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R
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| Format:
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Widescreen (1.85:1)
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Audio:
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English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, English
Dolby Surround
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| Subtitles:
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English, Closed-captioned
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| Extras:
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Commentary
by director William Friedkin, 4 documentaries on the making of
The Hunted, 6 Deleted Scenes, Theatrical Trailer, Previews
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This movie almost had me. Almost. I
wanted to like it. I tried to like it. I tried to have someone talk me
into liking it. It just couldn't be done. For some reason, director
William Friedkin loves the establishing shots and he drove me mad with
them. First we see Benicio Del Toro as a special ops army guy, out to
assassinate (and not very well for an elite trained killer) the leader
of the Serbian armed forces in Kosovo. We see him kill with a knife.
Hmmmmm... Will knives become important in this movie? We'll have to
wait and see. It also establishes his fragile emotional state, as he
can't help but stare at a little girl and feel for her. Hmmmm... Will
a little girl become important in this movie? Will his fragile psyche
become important in this movie? The answers, dear readers, lie ahead.
Then cut from the wild burning streets of Kosovo to the wild snowy
mountains of British Columbia filling in for whatever American
location it was supposed to be. Did you see the parallel? Fire, which
is harsh, destructive, merciless (Del Toro) to the snowy capped
mountains, soft, beautiful, peaceful (Tommy Lee Jones). Puh-lease! Of
course, there is another establishing shot. Jones is tracking
something, and its bleeding! Now I like trackers in movies, but it
needs to be realistic. Bad tracking scenes are the staple of this
move. These scenes are worse than the one with Aragorn surmising in
logic that would defy Sherlock Holmes himself on the fate of the
Hobbits in the clutches of the Orcs. Come on, I loved LOTR, but that
scene...ouch! Back to the point, Jones is tracking a wolf. He finds it
and frees it from its snare. Ok, he's an expert tracker. He also finds
the owner of the snare and establishes himself as a tough S.O.B. as
well by kicking his ass for using a snare on a wolf.
Hmmmm... Do you think these tracking skills are going to become
essential to the plot later on? Well, don't stop reading now!
Okay, so we've established that Del Toro is going crazy, has a soft
spot for a little girl, is an elite killer. So how the hell did he get
from the army, to the bush where he is killing deer hunters now? Ohhhh...
and wait for this... with his knife!!!! Never explained. So he kills
two hunters in the forest. Now how long do you think it would normally
take to find two dead bodies in the forest? Well obviously not long at
all! It seems like in a day Jones is on the scene looking for the
killer - who happens to have a nice little home carved into a hollow
tree not too far from where he killed the hunters. How smart is that
for an elite trained killer?
Now to give the movie some credit. I actually liked the hand to hand
fighting between Jones and Del Toro. It looked and felt real, using
leverage and quick strikes to immobilize the enemy and overcome. Not
wire-fu or bullet time, but just some good hand to hand stuff that
looked pretty darn good. I didn't realize that Jones still had the
chops for such a role, (it cemented my belief that he should have been
the Punisher – Can he not look more like a Mike Zeck drawing of the
Punisher?)
Now to be critical again. So after catching Del Toro, he (what else)
escapes and starts on a long chase scene where Jones is
"tracking" Del Toro through a busy downtown core. (How does
one see footprints on cement?) So this chase is the climax of the
movie - so Del Toro runs to A LITTLE GIRL! Not just any girl, but one
that has been in his life as the daughter of a woman he loved. He
stays there, Jones finds him, and then he runs. (Wouldn't it have made
more sense to run before Jones got there?) Anyways, this is the part
that lost any hope of this movie for me. In the middle of this huge
chase through streets, construction sites and sewers. For some reason,
either through a psychic bond the two men share or just the stupidity
of the script. Both men simultaneously stop running (are you ready for
it….) TO BUILD A KNIFE!!!!! Oh dear God! Yes, its true, they did
this. Jones finds a rock and another rock and uses one rock to chip at
the other rock until it is a finely honed blade. However if you think
that was bad, Del Toro starts a fire with wood from an open sewer
grate (not wet, eh?) rubs two sticks together and builds a fire hot
enough to forge metal in. He takes a rebar or whatever it was and
sticks it into this fire he built until it becomes red hot, he bangs
on it with another piece of metal, flattens it and sharpens it with, I
don't know, maybe his teeth.
Gee, how long do you think it takes to BUILD A GODAMN KNIFE, when they
could have run into any sporting goods store, hell even a Zellers and
bought or stole a knife in 10 seconds flat.
Another nice fight on the cliffs over the rapids, Jones kills Del Toro,
end of movie. Oh no wait its not the end. We go back to the snowy
mountains; Jones burns all the letters Del Toro sent him asking how to
deal with the insanity. Jones never responded to the letters. Yea that
makes friggin' sense.
The DVD:
This is your standard DVD. Nothing too fancy, but not bone dry either.
They actually put some thought into the DVD. However they didn't give
the director, William Friedkin a screen test. If they had, they would
have cut him from the movie completely. MY GOD, the more he spoke
during the documentaries, or through the commentary track the more I
wanted to be hunted, and killed, quickly PLEASE!
Some of the deleted scenes were actually interesting. Most were
extensions of scenes already in the movie. I did like the documentary
about the tracker who is in law enforcement. It lends a little more
credibility to the movie. However the disc probably only needed two of
these. Four was a little excessive and repetitive.
Now the DVD does offer a 5.1 Dolby Digital surround track which did
sound very good through the surround sound system. The effect was
noticeable in the forest where sounds came from all around which had a
disorienting effect as to where Del Toro was lurking. The video looked
good. The movie uses a lot of shadow and blending into shadow. It was
done effectively and the contrast in color looks pretty good. I didn't
notice any flaws.
The movie is also presented in widescreen format. The navigation is
simplistic, and I would have liked them to drop a documentary to make
room for animated chapter selection menus.
| The
Movie: |
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2/10 |
| The
Extras: |
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5.5/10 |
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| Recommendation: |
See
It If It's Free |
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did you think?
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Click
here for more information on The Hunted
Blair Barbesin - Contributor
More Reviews - Click Here
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