The Hunted is a 2003 American action thriller film directed by William Friedkin and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio del Toro, and Connie Nielsen.
The Hunted | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | William Friedkin |
Written by |
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Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Caleb Deschanel |
Edited by | Augie Hess |
Music by | Brian Tyler |
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Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Running time | 94 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $55 million |
Box office | $45.5 million[1] |
U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Aaron Hallam, a former Delta Force operator, has spent much of his career performing covert assassinations and black operations for the U.S. government. He is awarded the Silver Star for his service in the Kosovo War, but is left wracked with PTSD from the atrocities he witnessed.
In the wilderness of Silver Falls State Park, Oregon, Hallam encounters two hunters equipped with expensive scoped rifles. Hallam tells them that, due to their use of guns and scopes, they are not "true hunters". Insulted, the hunters pursue him, but are overwhelmed by Hallam's tactics and traps and are killed.
L.T. Bonham, a former civilian instructor of military survival and combat training, lives secluded deep in the woods of British Columbia. He is approached by the FBI, who ask him to help apprehend Hallam, one of his former students. Bonham agrees and joins the FBI task force pursuing Hallam, led by Assistant Special Agent in Charge Abby Durrell. Bonham discovers Hallam's personal effects in a tree and encounters Hallam. As the two of them fight, Hallam is struck by an FBI tranquilizer and taken into custody.
During his interrogation, Hallam is uncooperative and looks mainly to Bonham, who he views as a father figure. The FBI, unsure what to do, hand him to the custody of his fellow JSOC operators, who tell the FBI that Hallam cannot stand trial due to the classified operations he had participated in. While being transported, the operators indicate that they intend to kill Hallam to ensure his silence; Hallam manages to kill all the operatives and escape.
Alerted to the incident, Bonham and the FBI search for Hallam. Bonham finds him at the house of his ex-girlfriend and her daughter in Portland, but he flees after Abby arrives to apprehend him. Pursued by the FBI and the Portland Police Bureau, Hallam ambushes and kills pursuing FBI agents in a sewer and attempts to board a streetcar to blend in. The police block the bridge the streetcar is on, and he dives off the bridge, fleeing upstream.
Resurfacing up the river, Hallam crafts a knife out of reclaimed metal, as Bonham taught him. Meanwhile, Bonham crafts his own knife out of stone and enters the wilderness alone in search of Hallam. Bonham is caught by one of Hallam's traps and is thrown down a waterfall. Surviving, he meets Hallam at the bottom, and they engage in hand-to-hand combat. The two sustain severe injuries, and Bonham's knife is broken, but Bonham manages to gain the upper hand and stab Hallam with his own knife, killing him as Abby and the FBI arrive.
Bonham, mostly recovered, returns to his home in British Columbia. He starts to burn Hallam's letters, in which he expressed his concerns over the things he witnessed during his service.
The film was partially filmed in and around Portland, Oregon and Silver Falls State Park. Portland scenes were filmed in Oxbow Park, the South Park Blocks, the Columbia Blvd Treatment Plant, and Tom McCall Waterfront Park.[2] The technical adviser for the film was Tom Brown Jr., an American outdoorsman and wilderness survival expert. The story is partially inspired by a real-life incident involving Brown, who was asked to track down a former pupil and Special Forces sergeant who had evaded capture by authorities. This story is told in Tom's book, Case Files Of The Tracker. Chapter 2 of this book, "My Frankenstein," describes Brown's tracking and fight with a former special operations veteran.
The hand-to-hand combat and knife fighting in the film featured Filipino Martial Arts. Thomas Kier and Rafael Kayanan of Sayoc Kali were brought in by Benicio del Toro.[3] They were credited as knife fight choreographers for the film.
The box office for the film was less than its reported production budget of $55 million.[4] The Hunted opened on March 14, 2003 at #3 in 2,516 theaters across North America and grossed $13.48 million during its opening weekend.[5] It went on to gross $34,244,097 in North America and $11,252,437 internationally markets for a worldwide total of $45,496,534.[4]
The overall critical reaction to the movie was negative. It scored a "Rotten" 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 148 reviews.[6]
Many reviewers noted striking similarities to First Blood, with which this film was unfavorably compared. Rolling Stone called it "Just a Rambo rehash."[7] While there was some praise for the cinematography and the action scenes, much criticism was directed at the thin plot and characterization, and the general implausibility. Rex Reed of the New York Observer called it a "Ludicrous, plotless, ho-hum tale of lurid confrontation."[citation needed] The UK magazine, Total Film said the film was "scarcely exciting to watch."[8]
However, the film also received praise from other high profile critics, particularly for the fact it kept the special effects and stunts restrained. For example, Roger Ebert said, "We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free speed-up. Not so with Friedkin's characters."[9] He reviewed the film on his own site and scored it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.[9] Time Out London was also positive saying, "Friedkin's lean, mean thriller shows itself more interested in process than context, subtlety and character development pared away in favour of headlong momentum and crunching set pieces."[10]
11. Case Files of the Tracker, Tom Brown Jr., 2003, Berkley Publishing.
Films directed by William Friedkin | |
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