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Hunted, The

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 16 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
David Griffiths
Peter Griffiths
Art Monterastelli
Directed by: William Friedkin
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 14, 2003
DVD: August 12, 2003
Running Time: 94 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for strong bloody violence and some language
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio Del Toro, Connie Nielsen, Jenna Boyd, and Leslie Stefanson
An FBI deep-woods tracker (Jones) captures a trained assassin (Del Toro) who has made a sport of hunting humans.
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Walking in, I thought I knew what to expect, but i didn't anticipate how William Friedkin would jolt me with the immediate urgency of the action. This is not an arm's-length chase picture, but a close physical duel between its two main characters.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Rita Kempley
It's a good ride, briskly paced, well played and vividly photographed by Caleb Deschanel.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Isn't exactly fraught with psychological depth and nuance, but as a stalker-stalkee suspenser, the pic has some nice things going for it.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Engrossing as it is, The Hunted is more a showcase for formidable talent than anything else. It's a brainy, exciting but shallow show -- an expert's action movie that almost runs out of breath.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
While the plot of The Hunted is tiresome and the character development is phlegmatic, the picture holds fascination in its determination to trim away chat and guff and focus on tempo and filmic textures.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
All about the thrill of the chase, and Friedkin challenges the antiseptic spectacle and fantasy flamboyance of computer-enhanced blockbusters with a lean, mean manhunt thriller and gritty, hard-edged style.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Few modern thrillers aspire to look this striking.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
What keeps you watching isn't the story or the actors, none of whom are at the top of their form, but the relentlessness of Friedkin's vision. The film has great forward thrust -- Friedkin's a full-throttle guy -- and the director knows where to put the camera.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Aided by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, Friedkin works economically, lending the film the mark of a master craftsman, albeit of the coldly efficient variety. The terseness and surplus of technical skill make The Hunted surprisingly engaging.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The Hunted is so openly, defiantly derivative of 1982's "First Blood," you figure there has to be a copyright lawsuit brewing right this very minute.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Friedkin has huffed and puffed and blown up a single chase sequence into the whole damn movie. You got your hunted, you got your hunter, and away they go. And go and go.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The Hunted stalks the masculine psyche with sharp knives, but it tracks its audience too noisily to bag us.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
In one slack exchange, Del Toro intimates that the government wants to shut him up because he knows too much, but apparently someone decided that this thing was silly enough already and the matter was dropped.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Andy Klein
Jones seems to have trouble keeping up with the large amount of action he's required to participate in. And Del Toro seems ill-cast and ill-used.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
This is schlock - by-the-numbers action that ignores character development to the point where we find it hard to care whether L.T. catches Hallam.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
If your idea of a good time at the movies is watching two grown men go at it with fists and shivs and nasty wilderness booby-traps, then you're in luck.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Aspiring to pure action -- several very long passages are wordless -- the movie ends up teetering on the brink of self-parody.
Film Threat Rick Kisonak
The bottom line is the movie's a mess. Friedkin would like one to believe there's more than meets the eye to his tale of two trackers.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
To be fair, Friedkin does amp up the tension when called for. If only it were all for some purpose, or in service to a story that actually went somewhere.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Del Toro does remind you of Brando here; unfortunately, it's the Brando of ''Apocalypse Now,'' the one with the green face and puffy line readings. Jones fares better, even if he wears the same grieving-for-humanity expression throughout the film.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
As in "The Edge," in which Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins were stranded in the wilds, you can earn a wildernesssurvival merit badge just from watching.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Henry Sheehan
This superficial nonsense is easily ignored; that the movie runs out of gas at the midpoint isn't.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Essentially a reheating of 1982's "First Blood" -- a psychologically wounded warrior-vet pits himself against civilized America -- but the fallout this time is simultaneously more ruthless, less emotional, and duller.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Has so little going for it, you wonder if you've missed something.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Robert Learner
The movie appears brutally cut which might explain its inability to develop a thought, much less any narrative momentum.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
It soon gets down to its real business: fights, face-offs, and showdowns mired in the shallowest sort of Hollywood machismo.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
The only prize this shamelessly derivative schlock is likely to be in the running for is the year's dullest thriller.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Friedkin is steeped in gore, like some cinematic Macbeth, and it's obscuring his artistic vision.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
You keep waiting for there to be more, but there never is -- other than the fact that it all gets gorier and uglier as the dyspeptic look on Jones' face progresses from a four- to a six-a-day scotch-and-peppermint schnapps hangover.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The stripped-down narrative is almost an apology for the ludicrous story -- but it's just not enough of one.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
It's an A-list movie for the most brain-dead elements of the action-movie crowd.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 3.3 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Nick B. gave it a 7:
This movie is filled with action and violence which is great. But the movie is set in Portland, Oregon and I live in Portland. They made this city seem like New York instead of the hippy infested town that it is. Not realistic at all!
Derek W. gave it a 2:
After watching this movie I went out and bought a t-shirt that said "I watched The Hunted and lived to tell about it". Stay away from this movie at all costs. If you must see it, con a friend into renting it when it comes out on video so you don't waste your own money on it.
Matt P. gave it a 6:
Other than it's disturbing opening sequence you won't remember a single thing about this movie ten minutes after watching it.
Carsten K. gave it a 7:
I expected "The Fugitive III", when I went to the cinema. But this movie is all about hunting the bad guy down. Two thirds of the film are chasing - one way or the other. I'm not sure, if I ever saw a movie like this one - although the suspense drops the longer the movie lasts.
John Y. gave it a 6:
The film provides a promising set-up; we learn what to anticipate -- chase sequences. And we receive two successfully executed ones. But then the movie ends, leaving the viewer feeling cheated of a more complete experience. The actors add some intrigue, but ultimately, at 94 minutes, "The Hunted" is in dire need of another act.
David K. gave it a 0:
How bad was this? AWFUL!
Zeke gave it a 0:
Ranks up there with the worst movies of all time. Pure unadulterated garbage.
