The Hunted Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Some men should not be found.
In This Game Of Hide And Seek, If You're It... You're Dead.
Some men must be found
What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted?
In the green woods of Silver Falls, Oregon, Aaron Hallam, a trained assassin AWOL from the Special Forces, keeps his own brand of wildlife vigil. After Hallam brutally slew four deer hunters in the area, FBI Special Agent Abby Durrell turns to L.T. Bonham— the one man who may be able to stop him. At first L.T. resists the mission. Snug in retirement, he's closed off to his past, the years he spent in the Special Forces training soldiers to become skilled murderers. But when he realizes that these recent slaying is the work of a man he trained, he feels obligated to stop him. Accepting the assignment under the condition that he works alone, L.T. enters the woods, unarmed—plagued by memories of his best student and riddled with guilt for not responding to Aaron's tortured letters to him as he began to slip over the edge of sanity. Furious as he is with his former mentor for ignoring his pleas for help, Aaron knows that he and L.T. share a tragic bond that is unbreakable. And, even as they go into their final combat against each other, neither can say with certainty who is the hunted and who is the hunter.
| Tommy Lee Jones | L.T. Bonham |
| Benicio Del Toro | Aaron Hallam |
| Connie Nielsen | Abby Durrell |
| Leslie Stefanson | Irene |
| John Finn | Ted Chenoweth |
| José Zúñiga | Moret |
| Ron Canada | Van Zandt |
| Mark Pellegrino | Dale Hewitt |
| Aaron DeCone | Stokes |
| Carrick O'Quinn | Kohler |
| Lonny Chapman | Zander |
| Rex Linn | Powell |
| Eddie Velez | Richards |
| Jenna Boyd | Loretta |
| Alexander Mackenzie | Sheriff |
| William Friedkin |
5.60 out of 10 (9951 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Mediocrity
posted on 04 Aug 2009'The Hunted' is certainly not a terrible film alone. It is extremely cliche though. This was an average movie for the time...which is not anything to boast.Not worth a second view.I felt that the ending was way too rushed. Additionally, Benecio Del Toro's character was integrated way too fast. The movie would've been much better as a character study. The psyche of Del Toro intrigued me at first, but lost a lot and we find out everything about him. They should've kept him vague and then maybe, they could make the film stand out a little.Overall, the script's very imbalanced. The action is okay. And as far as it being overly-gory...well it fits the character right, but the characters are extremely under-developed anyway, so it wouldn't have taken anything away from the movie, because the movie never had anything to take away in the first place.4/10
Rambo what?
posted on 29 Jul 2009This movie is the 2003 version of Rambo. However, where Rambo had originality, plot, and depth, Benicio Del Toro's character is not a victim, but a psychopath who has most likely been pushed over the edge by his training as a special operations soldier for the army, but with an underlying psychotic condition. So, Rambo yes - The Hunted no. If you want to see a movie with lots of violence, The Last Samurai is an excellent bet AND has a plot.
low, lower, lowest...hunted
posted on 25 Jul 2009Recycling to save the earth is fine, but this piece of recycled hollywood c... is so lame. oy, hollywood, how'but this one: 3 US rangers (spec-ops, veal-chops) sneak close to enemy lines (say, serbian, whatahack), and out of nowhere come bad boys and snatch them...and nobody knows where they're until few days later when they're shown on enemy tv and than they say how stupid they are. no, this can't be used in a script, because ...it actually happened. holly s..., now what? ok, i have a good one - us pilot is shot down behind enemy lines, and than tries to survive by hunting and eating bad guys (say, serbian, whatahack). and than comes this retired army guy who'd originally trained the pilot-man-hero-cannibal in survival skills, kinda looks like emeril, and tells him over the satellite phone how to cook them (', some basil, a pinch of salt, wa-bamm!'). how's that for a plot, eh?
Wow, Tommy Lee Jones is really strong!
posted on 09 Jul 2009"The Hunted" stars Benicio Del Toro as a vicious, insane killer and Tommy Lee Jones as the man assigned to stop him. Jones huffs and puffs as he chases the nimble Toro all over Portland. He catches up with freight trains and battles with hunting knives. Um, message to the casting director: Tommy Lee Jones is almost fifty-seven years old. Please, he's Tommy Lee Jones, not Arnold Schwarzenegger. At least try to make the movie realistic.But I forgot! Jones is great at playing old cops chasing after people.
Ever since he won his Oscar for "The Fugitive" Jones has played the same character in almost every movie. There was "U.S. Marshalls" and "Double Jeopardy", and now "The Hunted". Except this time the killer he's chasing is actually guilty. Unfortunately, that doesn't help this ninety minute mess.Oh, and the acting's terrible. Jones grunts more times than he says a line.
Toro rotates his head and widens his eyes in an effort to look crazy.
Connie Nielsen, who plays a female cop helping Jones' character, once again delivers a very good performance, but is thoroughly underused.There is the action in "The Hunted" though. Once you get over the fact that it is near impossible for Jones to pull stunts like that, you can be pretty entertained. The fight scenes are done well too, especially in Jones and Toro's bloody showdown at the end.In the end, "The Hunted" delivers good action but nothing even remotely more, 6/10.
Uninspired, Derivative Chase Flick
posted on 07 Jul 2009When I saw the trailer at the theater, I decided not to see this movie since it looked like another "Rambo" ripoff. But needing something to add to my Netflix queue, I rented this turkey. My opinion from the trailer hasn't changed much except that in addition to ripping off Rambo it rips off the "The Fugitive". Isn't Tommy Lee tired of the same old crap over and over? I certainly am. I had a professor once who always tried to say something nice about a term paper, no matter how terrible it was (he once could only write "neat margins"). That's how I'll end my comments on The Hunted: nice scenery, that's about it. My advice: skip it unless you have nothing better to do or see. Rating: 5/10.
shoulda been a silent film
posted on 23 Jun 2009first off, just like to clarify an apparently mis-understood plot point: the "hunters" in the woods aren't hunters, they're "sweepers", i.e. guys from the army/govt. sent to track down and kill del toro's character - who's gone renegade/AWOL and is an informational liability to said army/govt.that said: friedkin most certainly has a knack for worming into your skull and gripping you by the psychological short and curlies; this flick is nowhere near as creepy as Exorcist, but it engenders that same sort of undivided attention. the dialog . . . was . . . stilted . . . and . . . lame . . .and . ..completely . . . artificial. NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT!!! Not that there WAS a whole lot of talking - thank GOD - but it REALLY distracted from the cool, intense stuff that was going on otherwise. i really believe the movie would have been better/more effective with NO talking: just nature-noise and breath and appropriate sound effects. LOVED the johnny cash recital of dylan's highway 61! LOVED seeing a decent knife fight on film! good blood, too: that accurate shade of watery-ish purple-red, not the ususal 'oh that's karo syrup and food coloring'. DON'T go see this if you're just looking for an "action" movie - because it is much, much more . . .
One baaaaad movie!
posted on 17 Jun 2009As a former career soldier I was disgusted by the negative, B.S> stereotypes that this film fosters. From Jones lecture about the difficulty of "turning off the ability to kill" to the stereotype of the lonely, crazy, hermit of a combat vet to the ridiculously unrealistic combat scenes in the former Yugoslavia, this movie was pathetic in every way... remember the flashback scene where Del Toro remembers seeing a massacre where three idiots STAND IN A CIRCLE and then cut loose on full auto with their assault rifles? Hmmm... funny how the guy standing across from each of them never shot the goofball on the other side when it was on a stone floor! From beginning to end the script was FAR below the considerable abilities of both of the stars and I am pretty surprised that either of them took this feeble foppery on. As someone with familiarization with combat knife skills I know that a certain edged weapon expert was consulted for the film and this was its only saving grace. The bottom line is that a joke of a movie like this was far more in keeping with the tradition of Golan-Globus with Chuck Norris than legitimate attempts to show for one thing, the very real suffering that some combat vets go through when they leave the military, but NO, we do NOT run around like lunatics cutting people apart, shoot people from church towers, and especially Special Operations troopers are specially screened in depth for any proclivity at all towards psychological instability. Save your money and 2 hours of time that could otherwise be spent say, breathing or laughing at rap music than watching this stinker. The producers also owe an apology to combat vets everywhere.
Routine Actioner
posted on 15 Jun 2009SPOILERS.Basically the story is that Jones is a civilian murderer instructor for the military and Del Toro is his best student. Del Toro goes nuts and starts slaughtering people in the Pacific Northwest. The FBI hunts down Jones, now both tired and retired in a woodland cabin, to help find Del Toro. Jones tracks Del Toro down and after many a tribulation kills him. That's about it.The first 45 minutes or so set us up for the film per se, which is one extended chase sequence with only a few puffing benches. Let me think. There are chases by automobile, chases on foot, maybe a chase on a bicycle or maybe not, chases on an elevated train, chases through surging rivers, chases on bridges, and I think that's all. Along the way there are spectacular jumps off bridge towers, off cliffs into roaring cascades, a spectacular martial arts fight, and a spectacular fight with home-made knives.You can understand the plot dynamics by taking "First Blood: Rambo" and making Rambo a murdering lunatic. Then you make Richard Crenna into chief of the pursuing posse, rather like the role Tommy Lee Jones had in "The Fugitive". Nobody else in the movie is important. The performances are uniformly adequate but the plot is entirely full of holes. I wouldn't know how to begin describing all of them so I'll just give one example. Jones is dangling upside down over a waterfall. He manages to cut the cord around his ankle with a point he has just made out of stone, looking like a laurel leaf point. (Why didn't he buy a knife before going off into the woods, instead of stopping to make one himself? I don't know.) Having cut the cord, Jones falls down the waterfall. SEVERAL waterfalls. The current rushes him downstream until he finally pulls himself ashore and climbs a cliff, dripping wet. There -- at the top of the cliff -- is Del Toro waiting for him with a home-made steel knife. What could the writers have been thinking?It's a big disappointment, coming as it does from Friedkin, who has made far more efficient and inventive thrillers earlier. There's no particular point in going on about this derivative and eminently skippable action story.
Friedkin's Return.
posted on 09 Jun 2009William Friedkin is certainly unconventional. Look at his career, the film choices he's made, and the fact that two of his earliest works he has yet to surpass (The French Connection and The Exorcist). My other favorite is To Live And Die In L.A. Otherwise, his choice in material has been very subpar. The Hunted is a return to form of sorts. It's got the action sequences of Connection and L.A., but the real problem, as with most films these days, is the screenplay. Poor writing plain and simple. Do you care about the characters? No. Are the characters developed? No. Does Friedkin to a solid job of directing? Yes. Jones and Toro are just as good. The pacing and action is great, but the believeability factor is very low. What, only Jones can track and beat this guy??? Not realistic. The main characters never make a human error during the film which makes the story less credible. The potential for a great film was there, but the screenwriters didn't seem to flesh out the storyline and characters here and the movie suffers as a result.
Great chase movie. 8/10
posted on 28 May 2009"The Hunted", directed by William Friedkin is a great chase movie. I'm surprised how overlooked this film was at the box office. Friedkin, who has had a pretty uneven career over the last 20 years, is back on track here in "The Hunted". Tommy Lee Jones is an FBI woods tracker who must find another tracker (Benicio Del Toro) who has gone insane and murdered several hunters in the woods outside Portland, Oregon. Like I said, this movie is basically one big chase. It's very suspenseful and the action is pretty violent and bloody. The performances are great, especially from Del Toro. He has that menacing stare in a lot of scenes that make him just creepy. Though one thing I am disappointed about is that not enough detail is given as to why he went insane. I know that it has something to do with a mission in Kosovo, but the insanity part is not explored deeply enough.Other than that one minor quibble, "The Hunted" is a pretty great action movie.
They should have cast Pam Anderson's Tommy Lee
posted on 24 May 2009There is no getting past it (unlike TLJ) the guy is too old to be combating with trained killers. They probably had to bring a stunt double to show him running thirty paces. Mr Del Toro will surely regret doing this one, but he can hardly say he done a great job on his charactor neither. Well below his standard.The film itself seamed to miss a couple of exciting scenes that make some sort of use out of his pointless FBI assistant and show the killing machine at work with the 'great unwashed'.Even if you have already bought the ticket to this one DONT GO! Sit at home and watch First Blood again to enjoy the sort of film that the Hunted tried to copy.
Good movie, could have been even better
posted on 20 May 2009The hunted is a really good movie, realistic fights, a fairly good story, good actors, good editing, but....The story is as follows; Benicio Del Toro is a superb killer employed by the U.S. goverment that snaps. He goes on a kind of killing spree, and slice up two hunters. Tommy lee Jones character is hired to hunt him down, since it was he who taught him how to hide and kill.[Possible spoilers] It sounds really good, but there are too many inuendoes that Del Toro was right in killing the hunters and is the true victim.You feel sort of like the movie doesn't have a point to it, they have missed the essential of having a good guy and a bad guy. It seems like both Jones and Del Toro are two good guys killing each other, and the goverment is wrong, but that never gets cleared.On the upside is the action and tracking sequences, it's realistic and very interesting. None of those improbable high kung-fu martial arts Hollywood kicks, it's all fast, brutal and effective fighting.The timeline in the movie might be a tad distorted at times and it feels like it's all going too fast. The character dont get developed enough and one doesn't feel part of the movie.Still it good entertainment and i give it a solid 3, on a 1-5 scale.
Fatal Prey
posted on 14 May 2009The Concept: 'First Blood' meets 'Fugitive' meets 'Blade Runner'.This is your only spoiler warning...Tracking is the Art of Perception, understanding the clues and knowing how to dodge the red herrings. A lot like understanding film... So, needless to say, Friedkin, Jones, and Deschanel are getting too old for this. Their lethargic attitude is shown throughout by the number of times they screw up potential material.Friedkin's style was considered revolutionary in the 70s. In 'Connection' he tried presenting a different form of narrative and acting with Hackman: more streetwise and less script like Altman. 'Exorcist' relied on its subtexts, Blattey knew Friedkin would probably screw it up, so he made it almost foolproof.The problem now, in a world of Jan deBont and Ridley Scott, is that Friedkin's method shows to be thin and of historical notice only. We easily see how sloppy the whole approach is, so we don't buy into it.Whereas someone like Scott starts with visuals (like 'Gladiator') and frames the plot around it, Friedkin starts with loose plot and action. This method has since passed on to James Cameron. Friedkin's most common trait, of course, is his use of the camera. It is either used as or in service of a character. If there is one good thing about this project, it's the use of low angle shots. Amazing that the photographer of 'Right Stuff' has stooped this low.Film acting is not about character or dialog. Those elements belong in the theatre where they are necessary. Real film acting involves understanding filmic space and knowing how the director sees the event. Jones still works on his 'Fugitive' method, showing a general degradation of his skills, while Nielsen knows how to use the visuals in her advantage. She comes off as somewhere between Starling and Scully. Her experience with Scott probably helped.The music is just awful, not help by crude sound editing from the Bruckheimer sound team.Final Analysis = = Cinematic Dud
Del Toro Wasted...
posted on 26 Apr 2009Robert De Niro went from Taxi Driver and the Godfather to movies like City By The Sea and Showtime, Tommy Lee Jones has followed a similar path, and so do most of the aging actors in Hollywood today.
Jones turns in an expected performance in The Hunted, but the main reason that drew me to the film was Oscar Winner Benicio Del Toro.Now this guy can act, and does not particularly dissapoint in this film. But it is the Directors own fault that he wasted Del Toro in a role that was not tailor made for him.
The Hunted is an agonizingly long film, that put everyone in the theatre to sleep. If the 'hunt and chase' genre is to your liking then you would probably enjoy this film, but otherwise the film lacks dialog and any form of facial acting beyond intense eye twitches from Del Toro and worried looks from Jones.
Overall, the few dialogs that Del Toro delivers are fabulous and reflect his amazing potential, but the Director thoroughly dissapoints with the pacing of the film.
Watch this film if you are a die-hard Del Toro fan, otherwise skip it, as its not worth the $7.50.
Exciting Fast-Paced Action Chase Movie Of Burnt-Out Soldier Gone AWOL
posted on 18 Apr 2009Aaron Hallam is an ex-army special ops killer whom the authorities want to liquidate but who is proving tough to kill. They contact his old trainer, an expert tracker named L.T. Bonham. Will he help them, and can he succeed where others have failed ?This is a solid actioner, a cut above the usual, from the gifted eye of Friedkin. The story is the standard soldier-gone-loco subgenre, of which Ted Kotcheff's First Blood is the best example, but it's handled quite well here. The action is straightforward, there's no unnecessary moralising, and the movie is pared down to a minimum of characters and scenes, adding to the tension and suspense. If I have a criticism it's that it's perhaps just a little too lean; Jones and Del Toro are both good, but have very little screen time for any character development. The trick with this kind of picture is to get the balance of action and characterisation right - we can't care about people we don't know - and the film lacks a little of the latter. On the plus side, the action scenes are sensational, with crackerjack stuntwork by Buddy Joe Hooker and exciting, dynamic photography by Caleb Deschanel. Bonham chases Hallam through a forest, city streets, an underground construction site, through a train and across the roof of a truss bridge, culminating in an expertly staged knife fight on top of a thunderous river gorge, all shot in beautiful locations all over the Pacific Wonderland of Oregon. Friedkin also manages to inject some touching subtext into the proceedings, like the scene with the kids playing hide-and-seek in the airport terminal mirroring Bonham's vocation, and the bookend theme of the Biblical story of Abraham, ordered to kill his own son Isaac, echoing his relationship with Hallam. Whilst not up there with the best from Friedkin's illustrious career, this is nevertheless an above-average, intelligent, well directed action thriller.
Good action movie for us die hard action fans
posted on 10 Apr 2009I walked into The Hunted expecting a action movie and that's what I got. William Fredkin has made one of his best action movies since The French Connenction and To Live & Die In LA. Tommy Lee Jones is in his top form as usual but for me Benicno Del Toro made the movie as a ruthless crazed vet. The film is full of intense action sequences and is pretty violent but if you're a action movie buff then you'll like it. Forget the story just sit back and enjoy the ride.
NO REAL SURPRISES.
posted on 02 Apr 2009This movie had great actors Benico Deltoro, Connie Nielson, and Tommie Lee Jones. And it also had a great story. But one thing this movie lacks is suspence and tension. And has the movie goes on it becomes less watchable as it starts becoming patheticly predicable. For crying out loud First Blood and The Fugitive had more thrills then this movie.
*yawn* what it's over?
posted on 25 Mar 2009I too don't want to spend my time outlining the movie. I would rather just state the most glaring issues.1. I have a feeling there was suppose to be some love story between LT (TL Jones) and the Lead FBI agent played by Connie Nielsen. But the fact that she looked and acted like a model might have kaboshed any idea of that. I feel bad for her, because she was like a fish out of water - her accent kept coming out and I did not buy her as an FBI agent from the first time she appeared on screen screaming "Sweep De Area, Ja, Dat's Guuud" ok so maybe I'm over doing the accent.2. Benicio Del Torro had a total of maybe 1 page of dialogue in the movie. Sad. With a great opportunity to put Tommy Lee and Benicio against eachother - possible the best three named actors in our generation - they ended up knife fighting for most of their scenes. Cool fights, but I'd much rather see some acting.3. Never quite understood if Benicio was a PETA activist or just some rogue Vegan who didn't like when innocent animals died. The hunter scene was way over my head.4/10 - not worth rental - wait for it to come out on Cable, then you decide.-pete
Wow! This Is A Bad Movie
posted on 01 Mar 2009Everyone who said this movie was bad were right. I thought that since it was Benicio DelToro's first movie after the Academy Award that it was going to be packed with high quality, good character development and supernatural elements (because of William Friedkin), and cool tracking (the tracking stuff was just plain cheesy). I thought that it had to have something unique and different because it couldn't possibly be another chase movie with no reason, but that's all it ended up being: another chase movie with little reason for being made. I feel that maybe the editors cut out a lot of more in depth scenes because it turned out to be such a mess, and it really shocked me. What is really sad is that so much effort seemed to go into making it. I mean, the filming was very high quality, like the woods and the deer, and the waterfall scenes, They even built a fake mountain. They actually built the whole tram system from scratch, and also built an entire fake Kosovo city, and hired hundreds and hundreds of extras. It must have cost $$$ millions to make, and so much human effort too, but I read that the director is married to the president of the studio so he probably had all the money he needed to do whatever he wanted and not be concerned about money. But why? It's almost like too many people were directing this movie and rewriting it from day to day. It's such a big mess with ideas started but not followed up, and no consistent plot, except for a simple story about an ex soldier going off the deep end and not getting help. He, the soldier named Hallam, read the Bible and cared deeply for a little girl, but them he cut up humans like a madman (the pictures of people drawn and quartered were actually pretty funny they were so bad). And Tommy Lee's character was really a bad person because Hallam needed help and yet was ignored by this man who we were supposed to think was a caring and concerned teacher. That was very inconsistent and nothing about him was explained so we were left hanging once again. Actually all of the characters made little sense. Look at the girlfriend with the little girl. She was supposed to be uneducated but she didn't really look the part and there was zero chemistry between her and Hallam. And Connie Nielson, why was she even in the movie? William Friedkin's commentary was just plain goofy, bordering on insane. I guess I expected too much, but all in all, I just don't know what to think of what went wrong with this movie. It seemed like half of it was missing because it had some good ideas that were started but never finished.
First Blood meets The Fugitive
posted on 16 Aug 2009And that's exactly what we have with "The Hunted". It's not terrible, but it's not great, either. Jones acting remains top notch, though his role in "The Fugitive" created a monster from which all of his roles are now derived. He delivers his unflinching, expressionless, monotone, yet highly acute and matter-of-fact lines one after another. A character who knows exactly what's going on as it's going on. I was a bit disappointed with del Toro's performance, he seemed to me to be a bit out of sorts with the role. The film was a bit bloodier than I thought it would be. At any rate, "The Hunted" is worth a dvd rental on a weekend.