{"id":5769,"date":"2013-09-04T11:22:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T15:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=5769"},"modified":"2023-03-28T19:14:46","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T23:14:46","slug":"william-friedkins-the-hunted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/william-friedkins-the-hunted\/","title":{"rendered":"William Friedkin’s The Hunted is solid but unsatisfying"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After watching too many sloppily-made thrillers filling up space on Netflix (including Mercury Rising<\/em>, Double Jeopardy<\/a><\/em>, and Along Came a Spider<\/em>), it’s a relief the my next choice, The Hunted<\/em>, is so solidly made. You really can’t expect anything less from William Friedkin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why is it so unsatisfying? First, it doesn’t really capitalize on the potential of an intriguing character: a former special forces agent, trained to become a dehumanized killing machine, who can’t “turn it off”. Pitting such a damaged person against the man who trained him ought to have produced fireworks. Instead of a character study we only get a series of chase sequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benicio Del Toro<\/a>‘s trademark blas\u00e9 mumbling is his whole appeal, but here he just seems to be sleepwalking. At the time, Tommy Lee Jones<\/a> was on the tail end of his plausibility as an action hero, and The Hunted<\/em> certainly plays off his signature role in The Fugitive<\/a><\/em>. But his performance conveys his character’s guilt in richer ways than the script does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For meaning and emotional oomph, the movie leans pretty heavily on a thuddingly obvious metaphor (a wounded wolf) and a Johnny Cash tune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After watching too many sloppily-made thrillers filling up space on Netflix (including Mercury Rising, Double Jeopardy, and Along Came a Spider), it’s a relief the my next choice, The Hunted, is so solidly made. You really can’t expect anything less from William Friedkin. So why is it so unsatisfying? First, it doesn’t really capitalize on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15,2],"tags":[1673,993,1221,1970],"class_list":["post-5769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3-stars","category-movies","tag-1673","tag-benicio-del-toro","tag-tommy-lee-jones","tag-william-friedkin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hunted.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-1v3","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":739,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/things-we-lost-in-the-fire\/","url_meta":{"origin":5769,"position":0},"title":"Things We Lost in the Fire is kind of a drag","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"April 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"?? Susanne Bier's Things We Lost in the Fire is a melodrama in the vein of Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu's 21 Grams in almost every way: the story of a nuclear family shattered by a random death, told as a nonlinear narrative, with conspicuously arty cinematography, and costarring Benicio Del Toro.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Things We Lost in the Fire","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/things-we-lost-in-the-fire-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/things-we-lost-in-the-fire-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/things-we-lost-in-the-fire-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/things-we-lost-in-the-fire-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/things-we-lost-in-the-fire-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5203,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/star-trek-vi-the-undiscovered-country-1991-movie-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":5769,"position":1},"title":"Why can’t Star Trek always be as good as The Undiscovered Country?","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"December 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Please let me know if there's another way we can screw up tonight.\" Not only is Nicholas Meyer's The Undiscovered Country my personal favorite Star Trek movie, I may go far as to argue that it is the best. It truly ticks every box of what makes Star Trek Star\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/star-trek-undiscovered-country.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/star-trek-undiscovered-country.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/star-trek-undiscovered-country.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/star-trek-undiscovered-country.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/star-trek-undiscovered-country.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1982,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/battlestar-galactica-the-plan\/","url_meta":{"origin":5769,"position":2},"title":"Answering Questions With More Questions: Battlestar Galactica: The Plan","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"February 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Put simply, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is a clip show done right, albeit in disguise as an original movie for television. 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Books are books, and movies are movies. I usually don't want or expect any adaptation to copy its source -- in fact, it's usually in everyone's best interests for a derivative work to strive to be its own thing, and not... well, derivative. 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