The Hunted

So much of today’s scripted TV entertainment is neck-deep in guns: law enforcement organizations and special military investigators now crowd the airwaves with stories packed with gun violence. Heroes and villains are all ex-soldiers, if not ex-snipers or trained specialists in exotic killing. It’s a little depressing, what with all the gun-to-the-head threats and ‘Mexican standoff’ situations.  Things are more gun crazy than the days of TV’s  Gunsmoke, in which every dispute in a tiny town had to be resolved with a shoot-out on Main Street.

Are we losing our affection for violent entertainment?  Twenty years of school shootings and mass gun-downs have drained my interest in dramas that thrive by putting children in jeopardy. There once was a time when the notion of a  ‘ruthless hit man’ was actually a fresh idea. This disenchantment reminds me of a quote from the German film director Wim Wenders, who said that he has a rule to pass on stories that rely on gun violence.

Even action films need ‘a reason to be.’ 

By 2007 director William Friedkin was no longer stunning Hollywood with movies like  The French Connection and  The Exorcist, but his reputation was still very high.  The Hunted has an excellent cast and fine production values but died a quick death in theaters. The action direction focuses on a series of gritty hand-to-hand fight scenes. But the dramatic elements could have come from a comic book; nothing feels fresh or important. The core appeal is to survivalist types interested in things like dirty knife fighting.

We couldn’t help checking out The Hunted on Kino’s new 4K Ultra HD disc, because 21 years ago I was the editor for a set of extras on the Paramount DVD release. The film never looked this good on the tiny Avid editing program. On theater screens it was a knockout — the cinematographer in charge is the respected Caleb Deschanel.

The story idea reads like a reject Sylvester Stallone project from the 1980s. ‘Secret Intelligence channels’ are a-buzz: ace tracker L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones) is brought out of retirement to capture Aaron Hallam (Benicia Del Toro), a top-secret special forces soldier gone renegade. Hallam has been charged with killing hunters in the Pacific Northwest, classified as a madman on a mission of twisted revenge. But Bonham knows Hallam’s secret: he’s a wronged man, scapegoated by the Feds.

William Friedkin used to be the number one man for serious films about criminals and cops.  The French Connection opened eyes and minds to the reality of crimefighting at the police level, and  To Live and Die in L.A. had a few things to say about the crazy life of Treasury agents. The Hunted introduces a shadowy super-soldier and the equally talented super-tracker, characters that might as well be part of a fantasy.  ^*

The low-tech confrontations between Hallam and Bonham are jarringly realistic, but other action comes off as no more believable than super-feats in old Republic serials. Only superheroes can survive crashing trucks and churning waterfalls, or endure a marathon physical ordeal after incurring serious wounds. Friedkin makes it all look realistic and dangerous, avoiding Olympic bullet-dodging and other Hong Kong nonsense. But The Hunted strains credibility in other ways.

Much was made during production of the authenticity of the Kosovo battle sequence, the knife fighting, and L.T. Bonham’s tracking skills. The knife warfare is certainly brutal. But the scenes where L.T. shows off his amazing tracking skills don’t work as they ought. All we see is Tommy Lee Jones concentrating on a bit of grass, or some broken twigs, and then confidently going forward, like Natty Bumppo or an Apache warrior. Half the time, L.T.’s prey isn’t even avoiding him, so where’s the challenge?

We know that tracking skills are real, but their finer points can’t be easy to communicate in person, let alone a movie. The director’s problem is a little like the ‘magic haircut’ addressed by writer  William Goldman.  In a short story, a really-really great haircut can be expressed with poetic language. In front of a camera, one snip of a barber’s shears looks like any other. The same goes for shots of Tommy Lee Jones squatting in a clump of ferns. Is he ‘cutting trail’ or rubbing himself with Poison Oak?

In what appears to be a few minutes, we see Hallam forge a handmade steel knife with primitive tools. He also has time to whip up several more weapons, including an elaborate Rube Goldberg trap made from giant logs hung from trees. We don’t doubt that everything we see is documented somewhere, maybe written up in John Rambo’s best seller “How To Be a Mean Em Effer in The Woods.”

These ‘super’ characters yank the film away from the levels of reality Friedkin achieved in earlier work that detailed counterfeiting and police procedures. The always-interesting Benicio Del Toro can be a sadistic maniac (the 007 film Licence to Kill), or a morally-bound policeman in an impossible job ( Traffic). He gives a credible edge to Denis Villeneuve’s 2015 Sicario, as a line-straddling anti-narco operative. But Del Toro’s Hallam remains a jumble of mad killer, military rebel, religious nut, and ecological fruitcake. In one particularly pointless patch of dialogue, Hallam bemoans the deaths of some chickens.

Friedkin’s movies were once original items full of surprises. The Hunted feels assembled from TV show hand-me-downs. It starts with a massacre prologue in Bosnia, a failed attempt at a serious, heavy background. After he witnesses the plight of a little girl in Kosovo, Hallam experiences an  Apocalypse Now -ish montage of traumatic memories. Hallam’s internal conflict is the subject of cheap ‘montage mansplaining.’

Tommy Lee Jones’ quietly masculine hero L.T. Bonham also lives in a state of quiet mental anguish, mulling over his role as a trainer of secret government armies. It’s the kind of macho baloney we expect from TV’s N.C.I.S.:  his response to his dilemma is to retreat to the snow-covered Canadian wilderness and meditate. Like Leroy Jethro Gibbs, L.T. does trendy stuff, such as heal a wounded timber wolf. He’s healing himself, get it?

These character complications are straight from the comics. We never get a purchase on either man, which hampers our ability to care about them. We almost wish that the film didn’t take itself so seriously.

Tommy Lee Jones escapes with his dignity intact. But favorite Benicio Del Toro’s voice has been re-dubbed with a non-Latino accent. It sounds odd and forced in almost every speech.  Hallam’s awkward lectures to his girlfriend’s child are an acting low.

The show couldn’t have been a positive payoff for actor Del Toro. He reportedly broke a wrist in one action scene, causing the film to be shut down for several weeks.

Other FBI heroes are barely in the picture. Connie Nielson plays F.B.I. agent Abby Durrell, the kind of ‘serious woman in a tough law enforcement job,’ that now wallpapers the weekly TV lineup. The breakneck pace results in Abby being given nothing to do but deliver exposition and incidental small talk. A fragment of a scene has Jones’ L.T. inviting Nielsen up to his cozy Canadian cabin, but it’s literally only one shot. There was once an original ending where she joins him in the snow, but it was dropped in the editing stage.

At least Ms. Nielson avoids the fate handed to actress Kelly Lynch in Michael Cimino’s strained 1990 remake of  The Desperate Hours. Lynch’s character is a successful attorney, but Cimino uses her as a punching bag for Mickey Rourke, getting roughed up for extra violence and nudity.

In the final assessment, the fight scenes and chase set pieces are pretty darn good. Friedkin & Co. may have been trying to capture the thrills of Andrew Davis’s somewhat similar big hit  The Fugitive from 10 years before, with Tommy Lee Jones chasing Harrison Ford across the landscape. At 57 years of age, Jones comes off as rough-tough as ever.