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Date Posted: 13:19:15 03/23/03 Sun
Author: The Rhino
Subject: The Rhino's Review of "The Hunted"

Tommy Lee Jones is afraid. You can tell by the look on his face that he is scared. He's dreading the worst at all times, even when there's not much to dread. He is fully aware of the evil of men around him. He knows what evil is all about, because he trains men to seek out and kill evil. But what happens when the trainees start killing everyone in sight, whether they are evil or not? That's what Tommy Lee is afraid of.

"The Hunted" is the latest work of master filmmaker William Friedkin. You know, the guy that directed "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist." Sure, he's had his dogs like "Blue Chips" and "Cruising", but then again Steven Spielberg did "A.I." and "Hook". Did you see those? As long as Friedkin can continue to make films like "The Hunted", we'll give him a mulligan.

Tommy Lee Jones plays L.T. Bonham, a retired government trainer of assassins. He can teach you how to gut and filet a human in less than three seconds. His job is to train these men to be killing machines, to be stealthy and silent, to take out the enemy and, beyond anything else, make sure they are dead! We find this out throughout the film as you see L.T. training these men in flashbacks. He trains them several ways to kill and how to make their own knives out of stone and iron. With these killers, guns are not an option. Guns are too noisy for these guys. Bare hands and knives are the weapons of choice for these animals.

L.T. gets a visit at his home in British Columbia, Canada, from an FBI agent asking L.T. to help him track down one of his "boys." It seems one of the trainees has gone on a killing spree. L.T. relents due to retiring and enjoying his new job working for the Wildlife fund and ruling with an iron fist. But after checking out the file, he realizes that he really needs to do his duty and find the killer.

Aaron Hallum (the magnificent Benecio Del Toro) is the said trainee. The opening scene of the film sees Hallum in Kosovo, taking out a Serbian leader in the most grotesque fashion. Hallum is as quiet as a mouse, as invisible as a chameleon lizard and as deadly as a spitting cobra. It's not the killing of the Serbian leader that keeps him up at night with reoccurring dreams of slaughter and horror, it's what he saw while he was in Kosovo. Innocent Albanians are laid on the ground and rounds of machine gun ammunition are pumped into their bodies, men, women and children alike. The Serbian soldiers smile as they rob the innocent villagers of their lives. It's a very cruel scenario for the moviegoer, but for the star of the film, it's much, much worse.

Hallum begins to sink into a dangerous madness. Seeing the images of the Albanian victims, as well as his own victims repeatedly in his mind has an adverse effect on him. Hallum takes to the forrests of Portland, Oregon, where he begins to pick off deer hunters one by one. He's not only killing them, but severing all of their appendages. Murders this grisly bring the FBI into the equation and, eventually, L.T.

The cat and mouse game begins. L.T. is like a bloodhound. He sees things you wouldn't normally see. He finds the footprints that the feds can't find. He sees the snare traps before they can be set off. He smells the enemy in the air. You begin to wonder if he's half ape.

When Hallum and L.T. meet on several occasions, you see the training come out in spades. Hand to hand combat, knife fights, it's like watching a Bruce Lee film with a senior citizen as The Dragon and a mumbling Latino as Chuck Norris. All humor aside, the fights are very intense and realistic. Jones performs in these fights with confidence, like he has been doing it all of his life. Del Toro, well, Del Toro is confidence personified. His character is as cool as a cucumber at all times. Always on high alert, but not showing it. He's the perfect foil for L.T., who is a nervous wreck and vulnerable most of the time. He's fidgity and squirrly, where Hallum is as straight as an arrow. A lot of L.T.'s nervousness is related to the fact that while he has trained Hallum to be a killer, L.T. has never killed anyone himself. L.T. is facing down the fact that he may have to kill Hallum and it's eating him up inside.

This is one of the finer action films I have seen in some time. I really am not the best critic towards action films because I mostly find them dumb. Nowadays, they rely on high spots and explosions. That's why a film like "The Hunted" is a nice change of pace. There are few special effects here. There are few explosions, save for the opening scene from Kosovo. It's mostly hand to hand combat. It's compelling. I must have blurted out "Ohmigod!" about 20 times while watching this. Especially during the footchase through the city of Portland. This is a fine piece of work here. Cat and mouse.

Now, I have to point out something that really bugged me before I finish up. In the spirit of many action movies of the past, there was a fatal error in this film that a filmmaker like Friedkin should have caught. There's a scene where L.T. ends up in the water and washes up on a beach. Obviously he's soaked to the bone. You see him take to the beach and scale a cliff. He should be soaking wet and dirty as hell when he gets to the top, right? Wrong. He's bone dry and his hair is perfect. My fiancee and I had a good laugh about that. But an error like that, while some would find it minor, really kind of set the film back for me. Continuity has been missing from films for quite a while now. Even a great flick like "Pulp Fiction" has at least ten countable errors in it. You can overlook that for a little while, but it's still there every time you watch it. It really gives the film a bush league feel after a while.

All that aside, I enjoyed "The Hunted" tremendously. I wouldn't mind seeing it again, but I wouldn't pay full price to do so.

To the reader, I hope you have been enjoying my reviews. If you have any suggestions or would like to drop me a line, send it to Rhinolove@aintitcoolmail.com. Thanks for reading!

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