The Hunted

The Hunted is a 2003 American action thriller film directed by William Friedkin. It stars a retired Special Forces instructor (Tommy Lee Jones) who is tasked with tracking down a former student of his (Benicio del Toro) who has gone rogue; Connie Nielsen also stars.
The film was released on March 14, 2003. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $46 million against its $55 million budget.
==Plot==
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 was awarded the Silver Star for his service in the Kosovo War but was traumatized by the atrocities he witnessed.
In Silver Falls State Park, Oregon, Hallam encounters two hunters and kills them. Meanwhile, L.T. Bonham, a former civilian survival and combat instructor, lives in a secluded cabin deep in British Columbia. L.T. is approached by the FBI, who asks him to help apprehend the perpetrator of the killings. Bonham agrees and joins the FBI task force led by Abby Durrell. Arriving at the crime scene, he proves that one man with a knife was responsible for the hunters’s deaths, not several men with hatchets as previously believed by the agents. L.T. convinces Abby to let him track the killer on his own, but she insists that he take an FBI radio.
Bonham discovers Hallam's personal effects in a small cave just before the assassin appears, and recognizes him as one of his students. The latter asks the former why he never answered the letters he sent, but L.T. demands to know why Hallam killed those hunters. His protege explains that he believes the men were “sweepers” sent by the government to eliminate him. Bonham fails to talk Hallam into surrendering, and the two of them come to blows before Hallam is taken into custody.
During his interrogation, the FBI is then forced to hand Hallam over toJSOC operators led by Dale Hewitt, who arrives with a letter authorizing taking possession of the prisoner. Hewitt tells them that Hallam lost control during a post-Kosovo mission, killing numerous innocent civilians, and can’t stand trial because his military assignments are classified. While being transported, Hallam manages to kill the operatives and escape.
Alerted to the incident, L.T. and the FBI searched for Hallam. L.T. finds him at the house of his ex-girlfriend and her daughter in Portland, Oregon. The two have a tense stare-down and stand-off, but he flees after Abby arrives to apprehend him. Later, in a wooden compartment, Durell and Bonham find Hallam’s silver star and a letter.
Pursued by the FBI and the Portland Police Bureau, Hallam ambushes and kills Harry Van Zandt, Abby’s Boss, and her partner and friend, Bobby Moret, in a sewer, before boarding a streetcar to blend in. The police block the bridge, and he takes a hostage at knife-point to escape from Bonham. Eventually, Hallam climbs to and then dives off the top of the bridge, fleeing upstream.
Abby, devastated and wanting revenge for her fallen colleagues, intends to deploy the full force of the FBI into the woods in search of Hallam. Bonham protests this, asserting that sending more agents after Hallam will only result in further bloodshed, and unsuccessfully argues that he is the only one who can stop the renegade soldier he trained.
Resurfacing up the river, Hallam crafts a knife out of reclaimed metal, as Bonham taught him. Meanwhile, L.T. crafts a knife out of stone and enters the wilderness alone to find Hallam. Bonham is caught by one of Hallam's traps and is thrown down a waterfall. He meets Hallam at the bottom, and they engage in hand-to-hand combat. The two sustain severe injuries, and L.T.’s knife is broken, but he gains the upper hand and stabs Hallam with his knife just as Abby and the FBI arrive. Bonham, mostly recovered, returns to his home in British Columbia. He starts to burn Hallam's aforementioned letters, in which he expresses his concerns over the things he witnessed during his service.
==Cast==
* Tommy Lee Jones as L. T. Bonham 
* Benicio del Toro as Sergeant Aaron Hallam 
* Connie Nielsen as FBI Special Agent Abby Durrell 
* Leslie Stefanson as Irene Kravitz 
* John Finn as FBI Special Agent Ted Chenoweth 
* José Zúñiga as FBI Special Agent Bobby Moret 
* Ron Canada as FBI Special Agent Harry Van Zandt 
* Mark Pellegrino as Dale Hewitt 
* Jenna Boyd as Loretta Kravitz 
* Aaron DeCone as Stokes (as Aaron Brounstein) 
* Carrick O'Quinn as Kohler 
* Lonny Chapman as Zander 
* Rex Linn as Powell, The Hunter 
* Eddie Velez as Richards, The Hunter 
* Johnny Cash as The Narrator (uncredited)
==Production==
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. 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.The Hunted. Sayoc Combat Choreography (2003-08-12). Retrieved on 2014-05-22. They were credited as knife fight choreographers for the film.
==Reception==
===Box office===
The box office for the film was less than its reported production budget of $55 million. 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.Daily Box Office for The Hunted from Box Office Mojo 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.
Buena Vista International handles the distribution in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands and parts of Latin America.
Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International handles Finnish & Swedish theatrical distribution through its then distribution partner Nordisk Film.
In United Kingdom - Redbus Film Distribution handles distribution under the name Helkon SK. It was released on 6 June 2003 (despite being renamed to Redbus on 6 May 2003).
===Critical response===
Rotten Tomatoes reports a 29% approval rating from 149 critics, with an average rating of 4.7/10. The Critic's Consensus reads, "An all too familiar chase movie that's not worth the talents involved." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 40 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.
Many reviewers noted striking similarities to First Blood, with which this film was unfavorably compared. Rolling Stone called it "Just a Rambo rehash." 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." The UK magazine, Total Film said the film was "scarcely exciting to watch."Total Film – The Hunted
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." He reviewed the film on his own site and scored it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars. 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."The Hunted Review. Movie Reviews - Film - Time Out London
==References==
==External links==
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Category:2003 films
Category:2003 action thriller films
Category:2003 crime thriller films
Category:2000s survival films
Category:American action thriller films
Category:American chase films
Category:American crime thriller films
Category:American survival films
Category:English-language action thriller films
Category:2000s English-language films
Category:Films about Delta Force
Category:Films about the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category:Films about hunters
Category:Films directed by William Friedkin
Category:Films produced by James Jacks
Category:Films scored by Brian Tyler
Category:Films set in the 1990s
Category:Films set in 2003
Category:Films set in Kosovo
Category:Films set in Oregon
Category:Films set in Portland, Oregon
Category:Films set in Serbia
Category:Films shot in Oregon
Category:Films shot in Portland, Oregon
Category:Lakeshore Entertainment films
Category:Paramount Pictures films
Category:Yugoslav Wars films
Category:Works about the Kosovo War
Category:Kosovo War in fiction
Category:2000s American films