Rating: 
Summary: Could have been better!
Review: I waited anxiously to see this movie, mostly
because I'm a fan of B. Del Toro. It was a
"good film"; 3.5 stars would be a more accurate
rating. As for some who think its one of the
"best movies of the year", that makes me think
they didn't have very high expectations for the
year!
The action was great, the acting was great (I actually
think Tommy Lee did at least as good a job as DelToro).
What totally prevents this from achieving anything other
that a slightly better than mediocre status is that though we
do get a fairly solid handle on the relationship between
the two actors, we aren't brought into a deeper awareness
of Toro's dilemma. He's special ops. he snaps. period.
His mentor goes after him (the chase and the combat are
excellent!) and that's the whole story.
Really, I think that a lot was missing here - a story
like this 'could' have more depth in characterization
and the fact that they leave this as more action-driven
makes me think the creative team behind the film didn't
aspire to a 'great' story so much as they relied on the
strengths of their leads. A more compelling story
would have made this movie a four-star at least.
Worth seeing? Yes!
Rating: 
Summary: First Blood with a brain
Review: I'm not fooling myself into believing that this film is anything more than "First Blood" with a brain. Substitute Sylvester Stallone with a MUCH MUCH MUCH better actor, Col. Troutman with cinema's other great Tommy Lee. and Brian Denehy's red neck posse with the FBI and a covert Sweeper team and you have "The HUnted". That said, this is an unbelievably good film.
Like "First Blood" this movie is all about knives...not nifty ones with blades twelve feet long with handy hollow handels filled with fishing line, sewing kits, portable toasters, an electric blanket, and a nose-hair trimmer..no these are real functional knives. combat knives wrought from raw steel or a chunk of flint. Furthermore they are about the men who weild them: The troubled and possibly paranoid trained killer, and the man who trained him. DOn't forget the Johnny Cash music. The opening battle scene is as gritty and distubingly realistic as anything I've seen, and the one-on-one fights are absolutely plausible and true. No one is being hoisted by a winch, pulled on wires, or being filmed by ninety cameras to provide nifty 360 views...this is BETTER.
Just when we were on the verge of forhetting what the real world looks like a film like "The Hunted" saves us for an hour or so.
Rating:
Summary: Good for the first 30min.
Review: This movie had potential a Goverment assassin(Del toro) gone astray,and his former "killing" trainer(Jones) out to hunt him down.This is all great but sometimes its almost funny you have an assasin at the top of his game being hunted by his trainer who has to be twice his age.oh! and (Jones) takes no weapons at all to hunt this man in the woods,thats realistic.But it does get three stars for the actors and for the first 20-30 min.RENT ONLY!
Rating: 
Summary: A boring waste of time, pointless
Review: This was a horrible movie. There was absolutely no point at all to it except to watch two guys cutting each other up with knives. The beginning started off great and I thought it might have potential to turn into the standard good guy gets messed over by the government but his trainer decides to buck the system and helps him out, not the case. I was really disappointed and almost fell asleep several times. Very tedious and boring. If you want excitment dont watch this movie but if your a sadist and you want to see two grown men cut each other up with knives then I would recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Short Hunt
Review: Read this plot synopsis quickly. The film picks up in a battle in Kosovo in 1999. Del Toro is introduced as a soldier in a special opps group as he witnesses the horrors of war. Fast forward four years and Jones is introduced as the world's greatest tracker. Then Del Toro kills some would be hunters and Jones is called in to find him. There are other things going on here, but this is what the film is about. The hunt, the father versus the son. It's fun as it plays out. The Hunted opens with a quote, or interpretation (I'm not sure which) from the bible and the story of Abraham via Johnny Cash. Now Jones is not Del Toro's real father in the film. He trained him though, and Del Toro saw him as a father figure. For those not familiar, Abraham was asked by God to kill his son. Now this is suppose to work as an allegory for the film, but I'm not really sure it does. Almost nothing is explained in The Hunted. It made me think of the film Basic, a film which told the audience everything, but showed nothing. The Hunted is the opposite, it showed everything, but told us nothing. It lends the key elements to the audience, just enough to keep us in the film, but it never elaborates. I wanted more. I wanted to know why things were happening. Instead the plot is second to the action, nothing new in this genre, but the plot works like my description of it, which, if you go reread, is not enough. In theory, more movies like The Hunted should get made. The plot is simple, yet engaging, the acting is good, but not over the top, the action is intense, but not unrealistic, and the running time short. Of course, William Friedkin has been around a while and knows what he is doing, but I think this film would have benefited from another thirty minutes of character development. Friedkin says on one of the DVD extras that he wanted the film to be short. Okay, I'm the last one to argue movies are too short these days, but this one should have been longer. A sort of poor man's First Blood I'd say. Nice effort, could have been more.
Rating:
Summary: You Need A Brain
Review: These reviews for the most part are laughable. In keeping perspecttive that this is a movie (although a very good one), there is a rich subtext, as well as providing deeper insight within the Special Forces Communities and the Operatives who comprise them than any other movie I've seen, including many of the actually realistic Special Warfare tactics and Survival and Stealth techniques which make them The Elite, especially escape and evasion authenticated by the World Reknowned Master Tracker and Military Elite Trainer, Tom Brown. In fact, much of this film is based on an actual experience where Tom Brown was the only one who could track a commando gone rogue, however the circumstances were very different and coincidental. Close enough to have him on as Technical Advisor though. Yes, the movie is somewhat ambiguous as to motives, who's who, and what's what, but that's much of the additional appeal of the movie (aside from the way our Special Operative character uses his skills to survive overwelming odds time and time again by any means necessary) for example, Yes, he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
No, he did'nt "just flip out"... he was set up in a later op by "Dale" which kicked his PTSD into overdrive.
Yes, the "Hunters" he kills in Oregon were Special Forces "sweepers". As a secret operative who "does'nt exist" and "off the range", you're then considered a risk to National Security and are to be neutralized to maintain the secrecy of these very real groups and ops/operatives.
No, he did'nt enjoy killing people who kill animals... If you see the film, he uses a mixed metaphorical analogy about the food chain... what if humans were no longer on top, and we were slaughtered wholesale like chickens... Essentially, he meant this as those in power including the military abuse their authorities over "ordinary" people. That was what he was fighting. Treating their bodies as game in the film was'nt necessary IMO, but it emphasized his point.
Yes, sadly he was unable to "turn off" his deeply engrained kill reflexes, but that's how you're conditioned... kill or be killed, no exceptions. He only killed those who posed a genuine mortal threat to him, or stood to hinder his own survival. Ultimately, it becomes clear it was'nt his fault... he fought it, reached out for help, and was exploited. The NORMAL human psyche can only withstand so much horror. It's those who are'nt affected who are the ones to worry most about. In any case, The Hunted, for the average viewer provides plenty of gratuitous gun and knife violence, brutality, "cool camoflauge tricks", car chases, rambo traps... Which is all good for commercial value and empty brain movie goers, but there's "Far More Than Meets The Eye" with The Hunted. Watch it and find out what YOU really see... BTW... Great interviews with Benecio Del Toro, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Brown, and a couple Special Forces knife fighting trainers.
Rating: 
Summary: Hunted or Hunter?
Review: Bonham, Tommy Lee Jones, plays a survivalist that is retired from training military/CIA people to survive and kill. He is called out of retiredment in British Columbia by the police when four hunters are killed. As he begins to recognize the killers methods he realizes he trained him and the identity of the killer. When he finally confronts Hallam, Benico Del Toro, and he claims that he is being wrongly hunted by sweepers for the CIA. Jones must decide whether he is telling the truth and how to bring him back to justice. There is some beautiful scenery and a good deal of action in the wilderness and in the city. Well worth a look, especially if you like Tommy Lee Jones.
Rating:
Summary: there is no story
Review: Summary:
Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro) is a U.S. military trained killer. That's all fine and dandy until the killing becomes more than second-nature to him; it becomes his first nature and he can't seem to stop doing it, even when he isn't on assignment. His urge to kill is so powerful that he ends up butchering some deer hunters. The F.B.I. are called in and they turn to the man who happened to train Aaron, L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones), to catch him and/or stop him. L.T. agrees and does find him but nearly dies in the process, only to be saved by the person in charge of the F.B.I. contingent on the case, Abby Durrell (Connie Nielsen (I)), who tranquilizes Aaron at the last possible moment before he kills L.T. Aaron is then taking into custody only to escape and lead Aaron on a hunt through Portland and eventually back into the forest where L.T. finally catches up to him for their final showdown with knives. My Comments:
I had the conception that this movie was going to be something like a Rambo remake with a U.S. special forces operative going a little haywire and wanting to either be left alone or kill everyone. Well, it is pretty similar except in this movie the Rambo character, Aaron, isn't really provoked and ends up dying at the hands of his trainer instead of giving up to his trainer. So, the idea isn't really all that original. There is, however, one element of the movie that is original which is why I gave it two stars instead of one, but I'll get to that in a minute. As for the story, it's horrible. There is an attempt to explain why Aaron went crazy - he saw too much violence in Kosovo and snapped. But there is no attempt to explain how he ended up in the forest in Oregon nor is there any connection drawn between him being in the forest and him killing the hunters. There is an attempt to humanize Aaron, by having him threaten to reveal top secret information and also having him meet up with a woman and her daughter, but both of these are quickly dismissed for what seems to be the primary focus of the movie - knife fights and L.T. tracking Aaron. Dismissing the potentially interesting subplot of Erin wanting to expose the U.S. governments top secret assassination operations was the wrong thing to do, it gave Aaron a better motivation for the killings then just being psycho. It also isn't really explained why L.T. never replied to Aaron's letters nor why he quit training killers in the military; a lot goes unexplained in this movie and it could have been much better. As for the story we see in the movie, it just gets worse. At least 1/2 of the movie is just L.T. tracking Aaron until they finally meet up for the 25 minute knife fight by a waterfall. Along the way Aaron does some pretty silly things, like climbing a bridge tower instead of just diving off into the water or even getting on the subway in the first place. Aaron also seems to lose L.T. about a million times only for L.T. to suddenly find him again without any explanation. Then, of course, the F.B.I. has to choose not to listen to L.T. and spends most of the second half of the movie combing the river and river banks looking for Aaron only to somehow become informed of the final confrontation taking place and arrive just in time to watch it end. How they became informed of the fight is beyond me. There are no plot twists, though I'm guessing that the truck accident was supposed to be one but anyone with half a brain could have seen that coming. And, frankly, the movie is pretty boring. What's more, when you watch the special features afterwards you realize that most knife fights last all of 20-30 seconds before one of the combatants is dead or dying. For some reason the fights between Aaron and L.T. last forever. It was wholly implausible, but I guess a 20 second fight scene wouldn't be as fun to watch, thus the extended fight sequences. The story, as a whole, is pretty bad. Even the ending is kind of lame. As for the acting, it wasn't too bad. Both Benicio del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones are good, but they are the only ones worth mentioning. I'm thinking that in the original script Abby Durell was supposed to have a bigger part, but for some reason she is really limited to just being L.T.'s sounding board when he isn't chasing or fighting Aaron. As for the rest of the actors, they were pretty much knife fodder for Aaron and didn't need to be good, so they weren't. The one original thing I felt the movie did was introduce the audience to a new form of knife fighting. The fighting choreography was actually pretty interesting and fun to watch, though it did tend to get a bit carried away. I gave the movie an extra star just for trying something new. Overall, this is really just a slightly modified remake of Rambo with a different ending, and, sadly, that's about all. If you've seen Rambo and liked it, you probably won't really want to see this because it might corrupt your vision of a great movie. Of course, on the other hand, if you didn't like Rambo, you probably won't like this movie because it is pretty much a copy cat. So, if you didn't see Rambo, you may want to give this one a try. As I said, the knife fighting is pretty interesting and some of the special features that come on the DVD are good additions. But as a story, I think the director, William Friedkin, probably ruined this by focusing so much on specific locations instead of telling a compelling and interesting story. I don't recommend this movie (and I like special ops/action/war movies).
Rating:
Summary: Tommy Lee Jones at his best...
Review: Just when you thought Tommy Lee Jones was an out-of-shape old actor reduced to wise-cracker in movies, The Hunted arrives and changes everything. Tommy does a masterful job with the fight scenes in this movie--which is worth the buckage for the DVD alone. He's gotta be in his mid 50's, yet he runs and fights like a 20 year old. What an actor! He's perfectly believable as a fight trainer. The plot and execution may not be the best, but I give this movie 5 stars for atmosphere. The movie isn't full of canned music you normally hear during action scenes. Instead, the director relies on the sounds of nature. This movie is a rarity nowadays. People are so used to the quick action fix and the matrix-style fighting (which is extremely boring the second time around) that they don't see a great movie when it comes along. I think The Hunted is one of the best of the year, if not for Tommy's performance, at least the director's vision. The Hunted takes me back to a time when special effects weren't what made a movie. I'm gonna own this one.
Rating:
Summary: Just Silly
Review: Ths movie is not only silly, it is stupid. I gave it one star because it has name actors. It deserves a negitive 50 stars. Military killer being hunted by the never had to kill trainer.
The movie is just about killing. Kind of eludes to a plot but never works on or off the plot. I figure the disk will make a cool little frisbee being that the movie is so stupid.
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