A special operations solider trained in survival, evasion, and a deadly knife fighting technique becomes a disturbed killer on the run with the man who trained him on his trail.

William Friedkin, the director of the thriller The French Connection and the horror film The Exorcist brings his trademark semi-realism to a unique subject matter. Inspired by the life of survivalist, tracker, and military advisor Tom Brown, The Hunted depicts the ultimate confrontation between two master survivalists with lethal fighting skills. Kali knife fighting experts lend their expertise to give the film’s combat sequences great detail and authenticity. The film’s story and dialogue is purposely simplified and pared down in order to enhance the action. While not entirely successful, Friedkin crafts a lean actioner with more detail and reality in the action than the average Hollywood film.

Benicio Del Toro plays a special operations soldier named Aaron Hallam whose experiences in Kosovo surrounded by extreme violence warp his mind so that he unable to turn off his killing instinct. This results in the deaths of several hunters in the forests of the Northwest. The FBI recruits L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones), the elder man who trained Aaron in survival and knife fighting, in order to hunt him down. L.T. initially succeeds, but Aaron escapes. Teamed up with FBI agent Abby Durrell (Connie Nielson), L.T. begins an urban manhunt that leads them to Aaron’s girlfriend, through city streets in a frantic chase that climaxes on a bridge, and ultimately at the base of a waterfall where master and disciple engage in a bloody and primal confrontation pitting their knife skills against each other.

Freidkin begins with a premise that could be mistaken for ripping off First Blood where Sylvester Stallone first played the infamous Rambo, a mentally disturbed Vietnam War veteran pushed to the edge. Friedkin’s version has a similarly disturbed war veteran in Del Toro’s character, but he’s darker and has a more tragic relationship with his mentor as played by Jones. The casting is terrific with Del Toro capturing the menace of a remorseless killer. Critics could lay into Tommy Lee Jones for playing yet another Fugitive-type role. Yet he is convincing as an outdoorsman with survival skills and gives the character great presence. The rest of the cast is simply filler, neither adding anything to the film nor detracting.

Where the characters and the rest of the film go wrong is in the film’s over-simplification of the story. Friedkin is obviously trying to keep the audience focused on the visceral action between his two leads, but he seems to have put blinders on to key elements. In addition, the film lacks enough subtlety, an element crucial to a film already stripped down. The opening sequence in Kosovo is a glaring example. An elaborate set is constructed with massive explosions and rubble everywhere as people rush about being killed or doing the killing. It all looks flashy, but staged and from a production standpoint doesn’t match the rest of the film in look or feel. Del Toro navigates the environment and we see him killing with an unnatural zealousness. Later, he has flashbacks, but there is never a satisfactory connection made between his loss of sanity and the violence. In particular, what would cause him to snap where so many others having to endure even worse do not? The film never digs deep enough to answer this and similar questions. There is an interesting father-son relationship between the main characters that is further complicated by Bonham’s guilt over having trained Aaron to kill. This caused him to ignore the younger man’s pleas for help as he begins to lose sanity. But although the two meet on several occasions, there is never any effort made to reach an understanding on any level. Perhaps this is showing a fault in Jones’ character, but it comes across as negligence by the filmmakers. After it’s over, there is a sense that something is missing from the story beyond the actual six deleted scenes.

One thing that is not missing in The Hunted is details, details on FBI tactics from forensics to firearm usage, survival techniques, and knife fighting. The Malaysian form of Kali knife fighting takes center stage in the action sequences with expert instruction coming from technical advisors Rafael Kayanan and Thomas Kier. This is very much a martial arts form, but in a truly lethal way, rather than the performance-oriented martial arts styles used in Hong Kong films. The combat is fast, yet clearly shown and delivers tremendous impact and grizzly results. Del Toro’s knife of choice in the film was designed by Tom Brown, another technical advisor to the film, as well as the director’s inspiration for Jones’ character. Thanks to him there is emphasis on tracking, evasion, and situational awareness in both the woods and urban environments. Although I am no expert on the subject, the film seems to take a few liberties with Jones’ abilities to track Del Toro through the city. In addition, Del Toro seems a little too adept at creating booby traps in record time and in just the right places. While the circumstances may be exaggerated, the principles behind the survival and combat skills are sound and few films have bothered to depict them in any way resembling reality. For this reason, The Hunted scores points for offering a unique and fairly authentic look at very specialized abilities few people possess.

For the most part, The Hunted is a throwback to the gritty action films of the ’70s that placed emphasis on realism versus flashy effects. A minimalist approach by the director keeps dialogue and character development thin in an effort to enhance the immediacy of the action and the emphasis on survival techniques, but the film glosses over too much and lacks a certain depth it seems to be reaching for. With the exception of the opening war scene, the film’s combat is well done and presents excellent knife fighting technique. While not a great film overall, it is worth checking out to see rarely-depicted military knife combat choreographed well and treated with a certain reverence that martial arts film fans can appreciate.

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