The action plot is lousy with cliched suspense scenes of back-road executions halted at the last possible instant.
The Hunting Party (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:25
Fresh:12
Rotten:13
Average Rating:5.8/10
Consensus: The Hunting Party is tonally awkward: its shifts from dark satire to serious political thriller create an uneven film, despite best efforts from its game leads.
Synopsis: On the fifth anniversary of the end of the civil war in Bosnia, former hot-shot reporter Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) mysteriously shows up, five years after imploding on live television and... On the fifth anniversary of the end of the civil war in Bosnia, former hot-shot reporter Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) mysteriously shows up, five years after imploding on live television and disappearing into a self-imposed exile. Reunited with his cameraman, Duck (Terrence Howard), who has been promoted to a cushy studio gig working with anchorman Franklin Harris (James Brolin), Simon convinces Duck to go on a dangerous journey to get an interview with the wanted war criminal known as the Fox (Ljubomir Kerekes), based on the real-life Radovan Karadicz. They are joined by Ben (Jesse Eisenberg), the Harvard-educated nephew of a network executive who is in search of adventure and a good story. Together the three drive deep into Serb territory, facing more intrigue and danger than they ever could have imagined. Writer-director Richard Shepard (THE MATADOR) loosely based THE HUNTING PARTY on an article Scott Anderson wrote for Esquire magazine entitled "What I Did on My Summer Vacation," about five reporters who actually did go after Karadicz, and tried to capture him. Shepard infuses the film with a sly black humor and fills the story with a crazy cast of oddball characters, paying homage to Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN, which was set in postwar Vienna. The three leads are excellent, especially Gere, who plays Hunt with a knowing grin that often hides what he's really up to. Shot on location in and around Sarajevo, lending the film an eerie reality, THE HUNTING PARTY--which claims at the beginning that "only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true"--is a fun, fascinating political thriller. [More]
Starring: Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Kruger
Starring: Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Kruger, Joy Bryant, James Brolin, Dylan Baker
Director: Richard Shepard
Director: Richard Shepard
Screenwriter: Richard Shepard
Producer: Mark Johnson, Scott Kroopf, Bill Block
Composer: Rolfe Kent
Studio: Weinstein Company
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Reviews for The Hunting Party
The Hunting Party is a complete bust, but the ways in which it fails are interesting.
...it does make room for the latest, loose-screw character part in the reinvention of Gere's career.
When something seems too bizarre to be true, that's generally how it plays onscreen.
As they say, the difference between movies and real life is that real life does not have to make sense. And that is what it takes to make crazy times real to us in a way that the truth cannot convey.
...The Hunting Party derives much of its tension from watching seemingly 'normal' people doing seriously insane stuff.
On paper, there's no way that The Hunting Party should work. But onscreen, it defies the odds.
If the director traffics in the realm of black comedy, any attempts to win us over or encourage sympathy or empathy with the rollicking hell-raisers on screen tend to give off a bad odor.
A forgettable contribution to all those movies about tormented, gonzo newsmen, stranded in some hellish outpost (in this case, Bosnia), who drink to drown those terrible memories but are committed to news, news, news.
Politics aside, The Hunting Party is a breezy, occasionally bumpy ride that ultimately becomes a satisfying journey.
[Director] Shepard strikes just the right absurd, satirical tone until near the end, when he allows the film to wrap up a bit too conveniently.
A sour, disenchanted war comedy that affects a breezy style, The Hunting Party was originally called Spring Break in Bosnia.
Although Gere and Howard's characters are invented, they feel the truest of all. They are often more foolhardy than courageous, less brave than simply stubborn. They are not real heroes, in the classic sense. But they are simply real.
The film comes off more like a drunken recollection by a war correspondent than something that might actually have happened.
The opening credit disclaimer for writer-director Richard Shepard's The Hunting Party -- 'Only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true' -- didn't help me much. Everything about this political thriller is ridiculous.
The biggest problem with the movie is the tone, which is by turns preachy, silly, mawkish and dark.
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