Viewed on 05 Jun 03   Let's make a blockbuster movie.   Let's call it HUNTED.   We'll need a Director with a superlative track record, one who, for sake of conversation has directed such films as Exorcist and French Connection.   Then we take two of Hollywood's most sought-after leading male actors. We'll put them in a fast paced, high priced actioner.   With all that going for us, we're certain of a box office sensation that will ring our cash registers up into the hundreds of millions. At least that's what Producer Ricardo Mestres, and we, the voracious movie-going public, had every right to expect.   So, where did HUNTED go wrong?
        Could it have been that there was not even one original subplot or idea in the entire film?    Could it be that there was not one single character that wasn't an embarrassing stereotype?    Could it be that after ten minutes into the film, the outcome was never once in doubt?   Or could it have something to do with audiences finally getting bored with watching the same overly-clever "jungle-craft" repeated reductio-ad-absurdium?   No, I'm not making any of this up, read on....
        When Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones) is chasing baddie Aaron (Benicio Del Toro) through the city, they pop up through a manhole, and somehow find themselves in the forest (saaay.... almost like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive and him again in U.S. Marshals...).   They are at this point unarmed, and Aaron finds an old scrap pile of angle iron, so he rubs two sticks together and makes a fire. A minute later, he has forged one of the scraps of steel he found into a sharp knife.    Meanwhile, Bonham finds a large piece of flint, and takes another rock and starts chipping away, and about 30 seconds later, has himself an Indian knife, honed to a razor's edge.   Junkyard Wars meets the Cub Scouts Of America.   The chase resumes with vigor...
        But stay for the credits -- Johnny Cash will blow you away with The Man Comes Around - he'll get the 2003 Oscar for best Original Song, or there'll be all Heaven to pay...
        Enduring Line or Phrase:  "Let him be filthy still."


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