I’m not a big fan of Richard Gere, in fact I’d almost go as far as to say that I can’t stand the guy, but the inclusion of Terrence Howard (Iron Man, The Brave One) and the interesting story of two jaded journalists going after one of the most wanted war criminals of our time, and calling it a holiday, got my attention. Still, I wasn’t expecting much from a movie that I’d never heard of before.
Right from the opening title sequence you know that The Hunting Party isn’t going to be your straight down the line, serious re-telling of a true incident – you know it’s going to be a fun movie that touches on some very serious, very evil, topics. Naturally you start to wonder if it’s really going to work as a movie, but you press on.
Set in the dangerous and fragile peace of post war Bosnia the journalists put their life on the line in their hunt for The Fox, a man who has been hiding since the end of the war. I’m not going to elaborate too much more on the plot, but along the way they get mistaken for the CIA, run afoul of black marketeers and get shot at quite a bit.
The humour in this movie really stems from the life style war journalists tend to have – coming close to death every day makes you appreciate living, so you tend to live a bit more than you average person. Vietnam journalist Tim Page once said that ‘Vietnam was what we had instead of childhoods.’
It’s this crazy humour that keeps Hunting Party from being too bleak, and it’s a good thing as the atrocities of the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia a brought forth in clarity, giving the film its message that evil exists and has to be confronted.
As a serious drama, The Hunting Party fails completely, and as a feel good comedy it does too. Good thing it doesn’t try to be either. As a good guys vs the bad guys romp through the mountains, comedy of errors, The Hunting Party hits the bullseye, and for one final laugh keep an eye out for the end of the movie where fact is separated from fiction.
Reviewed by: Jonathan Read. Rating: R16 – Contains Violence & Offensive Language. Duration: 97 mins. Genre: Suspense & Thriller, Thriller. Director: Richard Shepard. Actors: James Brolin, Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Jesse Eisenberg, Damir Saban, Ljubomir Kerekes, Kristina Krepela. Distributor: Roadshow. Release Date: Available now.
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