William Friedkin is one of the most renowned filmmakers of his generation, from thrillers including To Live and Die in L.A. and Sorcerer, to the horror classic The Exorcist. The director also made the 2003 thriller, The Hunted, starring Benicio Del Toro as Aaron Hallam, a highly trained soldier who becomes depressed and goes over the edge due to the dangerous missions and kills he committed in war. However, when he murders two people in Oregon in cold blood, Hallam's mentor, L.T. Bonham, is brought in by the F.B.I. to track down Hallam.
The movie features some intense fighting and knife sequences involving Tommy Lee Jones' Bonham and Del Toro's Hallam, and contains some elements of psychological horror due to Hallam's PTSD, along with chase sequences reminiscent of Friedkin's older films like The French Connection.
What Is The Hunted About?
The Hunted is a ninety-minute action chase picture about a personal battle between an elite soldier and killer (Hallam) and his mentor (Bonham). During the opening of the film, Hallam is shown with his unit going up against the forces of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War. While his men are engaged in a firefight, Hallam sneakily enters a torn-up building and kills a high-ranking Serbian leader in bloody fashion with his knife. After the mission, Hallam is awarded the Silver Star but is then shown suffering from PTSD when remembering the number of innocent people and families (including women and children) killed in Kosovo.
Hallam's depression over the killing and loss of life in warfare causes him to go on a killing spree, which begins in Oregon when he kills a couple of hunters with big-scoped rifles. Once the F.B.I. starts investigating the murders in Oregon, Bonham is brought on to the case due to his expertise as a tracker and a former instructor of combat training and military survival. Bonham immediately learns that Hallam is the killer after the soldier marked his name on the tree where the hunters were killed. What ensues after is a series of fights and chases where Bonham and the F.B.I. try to stop Hallam from killing more people.
The Hunted Is A Combination Of The Fugitive And Rambo
Friedkin's movie is reminiscent of The Fugitive because it also starred Tommy Lee Jones as a professional in pursuit of a man in trouble with the law. Jones' Sam Gerard in The Fugitive is a U.S. Marshal who led his team in the hunt for Richard Kimble, a doctor wrongfully accused of murdering his wife. In The Hunted, Jones' role as Bonham is more of a loner, although he cooperates with the F.B.I. to encounter Hallam, a killer with a troubled state of mind. While Gerard is a tough cop, Bonham is a very physical role for Jones since his character mostly relies on running around instead of riding in cars and helicopters, and also prefers knives and hand-to-hand combat rather than using guns.
Del Toro's Hallam is similar to John Rambo (one of Sylvester Stallone's signature roles) since he is a well-trained but heavily traumatized soldier burdened by the horrors of war. Just like Rambo, Hallam suffers from PTSD and struggles to return to civilian life. Hallam doesn't use high-powered automatic weapons like Rambo, but both soldiers are skilled with knives and setting up dangerous traps on natural terrain. However, while Rambo in First Blood doesn't intentionally kill anyone, Hallam ruthlessly murders anyone that gets in his way, especially those he feels wronged him (like members of his former unit).
The Hunted Resembles Some Of William Friedkin's Best Films
The Hunted is slightly reminiscent of The Exorcist on a conceptual basis in terms of a human being who is initially good but is then possessed and consumed by evil. In Friedkin's horror classic, Linda Blair's Regan becomes demonically possessed, causing her to change and commit acts of sin. In The Hunted, Hallam is a decorated soldier who transitions to a murderous killer because he can't turn off the trauma of war in his mind. There's a scene where Hallam is lying on his bed, fearful and traumatized when having nightmares about all the innocent bystanders killed in the Kosovo War.
There's also a long chase sequence in which Hallam rapidly drives away in a car while Bonham goes after him on foot, and then there's another chase scene on a streetcar on a bridge, similar to the chase scenes in The French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A. where cops are in pursuit of dangerous villains. Just like his crime thrillers, Friedkin is used to placing his characters in lengthy chases and physical activity in order to provide an authentic feel in his pictures, and The Hunted is all about action and physicality.
Friedkin and His Actors Bring Realism and Intensity to The Hunted
Jones and Del Toro are two of the best actors who can tackle drama and action (and are both Oscar winners). For The Hunted, both men went through extensive training in Filipino martial arts (including Kali) for knife fighting and hand-to-hand combat sequences. The actors also had a technical advisor in Tom Brown Jr., a real-life survival expert whose story inspired the film (Tom had to track down a Special Forces sergeant, who was a former student of his and was wanted by authorities).
Aside from the action scenes, there are insightful moments that show how skillful Bonham and Hallam are in their fighting abilities (including a flashback that depicts Bonham training Hallam and other students on how to kill with a knife), as well as the way both men can sneak up on and track other people by looking at footprints and blood trails, and how to make a knife by metal or rock (especially in a scene where Bonham and Hallam each prepare their weapon of choice for their final battle). There are also small moments that establish their awareness of animals and nature, especially when Bonham saves a wolf after its paw got wounded by a snare, or when Hallam tells his girlfriend's daughter about how animals like squirrels and raccoons are hunters that are sadly disrespected by humans.
Friedkin's movie has been negatively compared to The Fugitive and First Blood, and is a film that would now likely pass as a direct-to-video or on-demand streaming feature. However, The Hunted is an expertly crafted action thriller about two strong, vulnerable fighters (a misunderstood soldier who's been through hell and a mentor who feels bad for letting down his former student but is the only one capable of facing him in one-on-one battles). This film also could've inspired James Mangold's Logan since that movie depicts Wolverine as a depressed killer and ex-soldier, and the Johnny Cash song, "The Man Comes Around," is used in the end credits in both movies to signify biblical themes regarding judgment and revelation. The knife fighting in The Hunted is bloody and brutal, and the punches and kicks are intense and physical, establishing an actioner that only Friedkin, Jones, and Del Toro can offer to audiences that crave throwbacks to old-fashioned thrillers.