The Hunter

Recently I've come to learn the hard, unforgiving, yet understandable truth that our beloved Mr. Dafoe has an incredibly large *. With that said, here's my exaggerated review of his recent film, The Hunter. Dafoe pretends in this movie that he's some type of hunter/mercenary guy who's off to the wilds of Tazmania to hunt down the possibly extinct, Tazmanian Tiger. His goal is to find it, kill it, extract some juicy good stuff, and then dispose of any evidence. Fun! I'm down! Whoa, hold your horses now. You have to wait for the good stuff around these parts. First we have to first wade through the trenches of this southern Australian state that's chock full of melodramatic, cliché ridden, audience toying clap-trap. Say what? It doesn't take long to possibly realize this film may flop more than it flips - and flop it does, belly style. Forget about the lil girl who playfully swears like her dear old Daddy, forget about the amazing listening and drawing abilities of the mute little boy, hell, toss away the predictability of the unfriendly locals ("Bring the children inside. Hurry."), what you should focus most of your attention on is the lackluster screenplay and script. At times during the movie you could assume that the film was some type of dramatic improv session. There were at least a couple WTF moments that instantly make you question what the writers were thinking about. And really, the acting, no matter how understated it tried to be, was rather poor. Leading the way there is Frances O'Connor who bleeds out that she's an actress – she really did bring this movie down a peg with her overly feminine antics and greasy stallion face. I can't blame her entirely I suppose as there were even moments where I thought Mr. Big Dong was acting like a piece of petrified wood - which hurts me to say that. Wilem, the man, who played so many OTT roles so brilliantly, flounders about around Tazmania looking like a dead fish, using those wide-eyes and dead stares to rile up our emotions to no avail. The writing sucked here. Sucked! Shut up! I'm pretty shocked (actually not at all) by the overly positive responses this film is getting. My biggest underlying issue with this film is that it tries to be too many things. Instead of focusing on the exploits of the hunter which are of a more mature and heady theme, the movie juggles bits of charm and light-hearted wishy-washy melodrama. To me it's an obvious attempt by the film-makers to cater to everyone involved. Not only did it not work, it was glaringly noticeable, more so in tone than anything else. You'll probably like the film if you don't know any better, but you should know better. You should know that this movie, this disappointing tale of a hunter with a massive hanging genital should have delivered, and it didn't, because some jerks, whomever they might be, wanted to grease their monkey paws with the hopes of grabbing some more bananas. And again, O'Connor, stick to commercials.

"I wonder if she's the last one. Alone, hunting, killing, waiting to die." With this phrase the director attempt to link the protagonist, Defoe's Hunter, with his prey, the fabled Tasmanian Tiger whose DNA is being sought by a cookie-cutter evil corporation. There have been many landscape based films, and they all fall prey to the same problem - lack of development. While a beautiful country such as Tasmania is a great prop, waving it around is not enough to make a good story, and while The Hunter might have a stunning beginning, the poor development affects it severely; about a third of the film in, we are ready for action, suspense, and that whole bag called "plot-moving- forward", which the writers seem to have forgotten about. Unfortunately nothing really happens that you have not seen in the trailers; what is a solid seven descends into a poor six by the first hour and leaves you with a feeling of having been sold short by a few measures. Cue minimal, uninspired ending and you can leave this in the cheapo bin at Blockbuster. Final vote : 5/10 - great beginning, nothing else; half a film.

There is something pure and truthful about this movie. Of course, it has a story, but the story is just a symbol. The depth behind the story and what it implies is what matters here. A work of art is never entertaining and just served as it is. This work of art explores the relation between the remains of that what is primordial in nature and what is essential in a man. It does not speak to us, but rather shows us instead. Through it's impeccable imagery we can almost sense something primordial in the outbacks of the modern day world. And in that world, as he is also in nature, a man is without direction, until an insight is born. True compass is on the inside. And for that, I applaud the artists.

although the whole movie was beautifully shot with very nice casting job, but i still find it very difficult to categorize the mysterious purposes of making this picture and how to include it in what kind of genre. a thriller? a romantic journey? a retrospection of a distinguished but extinguished animal in tasmania? a humanitarian mission? or what? what i like and appreciate most is the two kids, the talkative sister and her speechless kid brother. the young girl needed to be closely watched for her future acting career in Australian movie industries. she's a natural young talent. dafoe, well, his unique facial structure is like an artistic work of a great modern sculpture artist specialized in granite carving. his images in this film were so artistically portrayed by camera. but the movie itself was, in general, a waste of time and money. a thought-to-be harmless hunting trip turned into murders, arson, bar brawl, local unfriendly thugs harassment. and what's the purpose of killing the last tasmania tiger? why not catch it instead of killing it? what's the real purpose of this whole getting-nothing-and-going-nowhere hunting? it's a very weird screenplay, trying very hard to tell something but ended up telling nothing. this is a very beautiful movie without purpose.