THE HUNTED review

The trailer for THE HUNTED sells you a film with images that look like it is a movie about Benicio Del Toro playing a Rambo Fugitive with a Rock-N-Roll score and explosions and big noisy stunts and the typical pontifications we’ve heard in a ton of movies we’ve seen before and Tommy Lee Jones reprising as some sort of U.S. Marshall like his Gerard.

I saw that trailer, but decided to ignore it and call William Friedkin to bring the film to Austin early, to hold a benefit screening for the Center For Young Cinema in Austin and a good ol Alamo Drafthouse audience. My hope for the film was my faith in Friedkin, Benicio Del Toro and Brian Tyler. My fears were manifested by Tommy Lee Jones and Connie Nielsen. I’ll explain.

Billy Friedkin is an unflinching filmmaker that never pulls a punch. He’ll show you things that you wish you never saw and that certainly you can never forget. The bloody crucifix masturbation scene from EXORCIST, the bridge crossing scene in SORCEROR, pretty much CRUISING in its entirety, two of the greatest car chases in film history FRENCH CONNECTION & TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., the bound and gagged rape scene of RAMPAGE, that car/pedestrian hit in JADE, the killing of the women & children in RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. In all these scenes or sequences, Billy left me with images that I haven’t been able to shake. He’s made some bad movies, but even in those, there are signs that he’s still working on knocking your teeth out. JADE very nearly killed his career, but in many ways, by reaching back to the EXORCIST and releasing that new cut, it was as if he reminded Hollywood what he was capable of. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT is a pretty damn good movie, I mean hell… that next year, its screenwriter Stephen Gaghan turned in TRAFFIC for Soderbergh and won his Oscar. It might just be my nostalgia, the amount that I love THE FRENCH CONNECTION, THE EXORCIST, SORCEROR, CRUISING and TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., but I don’t think so. I believe that that re-release, that re-editing of EXORCIST and bringing that film back to life in theaters put vim and vigor into Friedkin, and I was hoping he’d deliver a mean as hell film with THE HUNTED.

With Benicio Del Toro, well, I feel I have an actor’s actor. A guy that’s reminding me of Paul Muni on screen, one of those actors that refuses to “type” themselves, become a chameleon, disappear into his roles. I mean from the insanely genius babble dialogue of Fenster in USUAL SUSPECTS to his mad frenetic paranoid glee of Dr. Gonzo in FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS to the cool of his Franky Four Fingers in SNATCH to the weird possibly sexual nature of his friendship and the cruelty of his resolve as Longbaugh in THE WAY OF THE GUN to the absolute Bogart cool of his Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez in TRAFFIC… well, he isn’t doing the same thing, he’s not even close to playing the same type of guy from role to role. I love that. He’s my favorite type of actor in film, he’s surprising and I never know what to expect from him.

Then there was Brian Tyler. Now, you may not know Brian Tyler, but you will. It is only a matter of time till he knocks a score so far out of the park that you’ll squeal with glee at his name. For me, he’s already done that. His score for SIX STRING SAMURAI is simply one of my favorite Rock-N-Roll scores I’ve ever heard. He hasn’t done a lot of music you know, but some of the score to FAST AND THE FURIOUS was his, he did a great score for a little seen great film called FRAILTY. His score helps BUBBA HO-TEP greatly and when I heard that William Friedkin was using him for THE HUNTED… I was curious. He’s one of those talents that not many know to listen for, and it genuinely surprised me when Paxton told me back last year that Friedkin hired him, I was just hoping he would knock this one out of the park, cuz I knew that more ears would be listening to this score than he’d ever had before.

Now for my fears…

Tommy Lee Jones. The idea that Tommy Lee Jones could ever be a possible negative for me is hideous. However, ever since he played Gerard, he has the habit of playing a senior investigator with the exact same sense of no nonsense. The trailer seemed to make me think he might be phoning in another “been there, done that” type of performance where I’d hear him barking out orders to a team of investigators about setting up a perimeter and having to be talked into the investigation against his better judgment and… ugh, I just knew it was going to be another one of those. I don’t need to see Tommy Lee Jones playing Richard Creena’s role from FIRST BLOOD. I miss that dangerous Tommy Lee Jones from the Seventies, the bizarre character actor from those Oliver Stone films. That guy from EYES OF LAURA MARS, ROLLING THUNDER and JACKSON COUNTY JAIL. I just haven’t seen him do much in recent years that excited me, but I hoped that being opposite Benicio, that perhaps he’d turn it up a bit. That he’d come up with a new way of playing his character.

Connie Nielsen wasn’t the source for my fear, it was more or less the fear that she would be turned into some bizarre romantic entanglement for Tommy Lee Jones’ character. Connie’s best work is still unseen by most American eyes, she’s genius in DEMONLOVER, a film that I hope to God you folks get a chance to take in at some point… Though the level some of you will hate that will be… pretty intense, she is still fantastic throughout and utterly brave. I was just a bit terrified that she’d have that beautiful female investigator sidekick part where the senior investigator holds her hand and guides her through things, because… um, ya know she’s a beautiful lady and must have her hand held.

All of these fears and hopes were based on tiny things I saw in that trailer. Just little things that I was coming up with preconceptions on. The reviews we’d received at AICN had been all over the place. Both positive and negative. The negatives seemed to be stressing the similarities to FIRST BLOOD and the positives were pushing the sheer visceral feel of the film.

In truth, I’d been working on getting this screening here in town since last November. Friedkin set the date on February 28th and I set the venue as being ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE NORTH here in Austin, Texas. Why such a small venue? Well, first off I love the Alamo Drafthouse. It is my favorite place to watch a movie on the planet. It isn’t one of those stadium theaters, It is a movie house where you still arch your neck a bit and look up to the movies. The theaters hold around 200 people or less and frankly… When I see live music, I always prefer the small venue. It feels more intimate, more personal. The energy is always tangible. Here, I’d be having one of the great directors in a tiny intimate setting, where everybody can see he’s a human being and not a dot with an amplified voice. And giving the money to the Center For Young Cinema, well personally… That’s just good karma, it’s helping kids to get the tools and the education to pursue the dream they have of possibly growing up to be filmmakers themselves. Documentarians, Narrative Filmmakers or just plain experimental. You never know.

Before the screening I was nervous though. The test screening reviews that were uneven… At these charity screenings, I always want to give the audience the film they are hoping for when they fork over the ‘inflated’ ticket price, to give them value for their buck, and something to talk about for the following week or two… or maybe even the rest of their life. That’s a lot to expect from a film and a guest, but that is kinda what I expect.

The screening was sold out. No introduction by Friedkin, just a start.

The film begins around Kosovo. An elite Delta Force style team that is going in to assassinate a leader that is basically committing genocide one city at a time throughout the region. To describe the scene as coming out of the pits of Hell, well it’s a beginning. You see flashes of explosions and flames in the trailer… This is the section they begin in. You see women and children being herded up, pushed into ditches and then riddled with bullets. Then the flames… The whole time we see this, we’re seeing it from Benicio’s point of view as he’s making his way through the city to his target. Crawling amongst burnt corpses, the seared remains of a near biblical man, woman and child style extermination. The way he moves through this hellish terrain tells you, he’s very good at what he does. At one point you see him reverse repel down a corner in a single fluid controlled fall. It’s the sort of motion that just gives ya the creeps and makes you utter beneath your breath… Cool. When you see him kill his target, get his medal… Well, I flashed to Stanley Baker’s Private Butcher Brown from GUNS OF NAVARONE, when he talks about when you kill a man with a knife you're close enough to smell him, and that whole mania he has about it leaving a bad taste in his mouth. It’s not an easy way to kill someone.

One of the great things that you have in THE HUNTED is Tommy Lee Jones’ L.T. and not just his tracking ability, but the way Friedkin visually conveys those signs so we understand what he’s seeing. In TWO TOWERS, you have that great scene at the site of the Uruk massacre and pyre, where he deduces what became of the two hobbits. There, the signs on the ground gave way to the hobbits making them, in a very clear Cause & Effect tapestry that was great to follow, but in a way, that really was holding the audiences’ hand through the process. Here, Friedkin and his editor Augie Hess have created such a dynamic from still signs, holding each one long enough for us to recognize what it is, while diving ahead to show how close Tommy’s character is to Benicio’s. This combined with the wonderfully concussive Brian Tyler score really made for thrilling sequences.

Before I get into all of this, let me address those preconceived notions I had.

First there was my feelings about William Friedkin. Something about him not pulling punches. Um… YEAH, you better believe it. The knife fights in this movie are so brutal, hell, all combat in this film, of any type… it is so uncompromising that after the film, some folks were wondering out loud how some scenes of extreme violence got past the MPAA. The film is complicated on several levels and forces the audience to wonder about many items left unresolved on purpose. This film will make you flinch in your seat. Friedkin’s fight sequences in this film are so visceral and fast, clear and intense that you may find yourself going, “Oh FUCK, oooowww, SHIT SHIT OUCH, Oh Man Oh Man!” You might even have your fingers in front of your eyes and peering back at the screen through the cracks between. You have been warned. You’ve never seen knife fights like this… Don’t think WEST SIDE STORY, think about striping and cleaning a deer.

Benicio Del Toro? Well his Aaron Hallam is no John Rambo, no Dr Richard Kimble… Hallam is paranoid, possibly with just cause, he’s a multiple murderer… admittedly. He is complicated emotionally because he wants a normal life, but knows he can never have it. The type of work he’s done has permanently affected him in the worst way possible. He is and has become a rabid dog. A monster that stalks through the wilds. However, like all “supposed” natural monsters, like bears and lions that kill, often they are provoked or are acting out of a need to survive. As a result, his Hallam is sympathetic, but clearly unstable. He is a character of few words, as he has been trained to act on instinct, but make no mistake, he isn’t slow or dumb, he’s merely not telegraphing his moves. His delusions or perceptions could be true, we’re never given the information that he may, in fact, be perceiving things correctly… we just don’t know for sure. It is one of the unresolved issues that we get to talk about. You can have arguments about afterwards.

Brian Tyler’s score perfectly accents the film. The concussive percussion and strings he uses to propel the tracking sequences, oh so very very nice. It won’t be the score he’s remembered by as it isn’t a great THEMES score, but an action score. It does exactly what it needed to do, it makes the film rock just that much more.

Now for those fears.

COMPLETELY UNFOUNDED.

Tommy Lee Jones is not playing Chief Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard or Agent K or Travis Lehman or Col. Hodges or Col. Hawkins. I love his L.T. Here’s a man of peace. A man that has never killed, but has trained generations to kill. He is an expert in survival, tracking and killing, but he has never killed a man himself. He has trained the United States’ Elite military, without ever serving the stars and stripes himself. And you may feel this character’s background is ludicrous and unbelievable, and if you do, look up Tom Brown Jr, the man whose life this character is based. The performance is complete. Tommy’s entire physicality is different here, I’ve never seen him like this in a film. He’s fidgety, nervous, constantly in motion, shaking out energy, his eyes always moving. He seems almost annoyed to be around people. Like he doesn’t understand the environment he’s in. Like a caged animal wanting for the wilds. I love it. His L.T. isn’t with the military or the F.B.I. He’s an outside expert that they’ve brought in to consult, but he sets to work almost automatically, leaving them behind as he catches the scent, the signs on the trail. He is a human bloodhound, and he’s absolutely captivating to watch.

Both Benicio and Tommy’s characters in this film are fairly anti-social. They are not big storytellers, they get down to business, they are about survival and doing their jobs. They don’t pussyfoot around with monologues or quirky cool dialogue, they hit the trail, they waste no time. The result may leave some audience members cold, but just because they aren’t saying anything, doesn’t mean they aren’t telling you things with their eyes and their bodies. These characters are very much PHYSICAL CREATIONS by two outstanding physical performers.

Lastly there was the concern about Connie Nielsen. Well, the only complaint I can imagine someone having is that there isn’t enough of her, but frankly, had she had one more scene, that would have been too many. Not that I didn’t like her, but this isn’t her story. Her character is an enabler. A character that involves another character into the story, but just passes the baton, without really carrying it for any amount of time. She is a peripheral character. And thank god, never becomes a romantic entanglement for anyone. Whew.

There’s a scene in the trailer, where Connie Nielsen is pointing a gun at Benicio. I’m gonna tell you, he dives out that window. Now, the second he dives out that window till the end of the film, it is a chase and a fight. One long as hell non-stop flight and fight. Including a brilliant scene of deductive tracking by Tommy’s L.T. that literally is breathless. What happens is brutal, lives are taken and the climax is just great.

There is one star that I haven’t mentioned in the reviewing of this film. A star that I can not possibly ignore. Caleb Deschanel. The cinematographer behind THE BLACK STALLION, BEING THERE, THE RIGHT STUFF, THE NATURAL, FLY AWAY HOME, THE PATRIOT and now this. Here, he again exemplifies the art of cinematography. From the battle in Kosovo with the rich fire lit scenes, to the lush primal forests around Washington state around Portland, to those gorgeous snow filled conifers around L.T.’s home… well as usual Caleb’s lens makes it all breathtaking. The filming of the knife fighting is so sharp and crisp that, well as I’ve mentioned above, you’ll flinch repeatedly.

Lastly, any film that opens and closes with Johnny Cash quoting Bob Dylan, well, it can’t be all bad.

The audience seemed to really enjoy the film and afterwards, the AICN crowd all universally enthused about the film. The movie is about the art of people that track animals and people, the art of survival and the brutality of what war and killing can do to a man. It is far more intense than I think you may be expecting, though not so much in a gory fashion, but in a kinetic way brought on by brutal editing and sound mixing. And yes, a knife is shown to be as brutal as a knife could ever be.

THE HUNTED is William Friedkin’s most entertaining and thrilling film since TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., which I do prefer to this film, but that film is just on a larger scale. This is a far more intimate mano-a-mano story, while TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. was… urban hell. Hehehe… Btw, in the Q&A afterwards, Friedkin confirmed that he’s just finished putting together everything for the TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. DVD with tons of extras and commentary, and that it will be coming out this year. Also, he’s at work on SORCEROR and feels that will be hitting this year as well. So, it’s a good year for Friedkin fans.