Director Mark Steven Johnson can’t seem to balance a tone here, which is a pity because for the most part he stands back and lets the two stars go at each other.
Killing Season is a movie that thrills and leaves you thinking. It is timely because the tension echoes many of the current situations going on in society. In their own right each of the two in the movie have their reasons (and justifications) for their points and places. In the end (sorry, no spoiler here) the stark realization of the view from the other side really brings home the powerful moral of this movie. De Niro is his usual amazing self and Travolta delivers a nearly convincing eastern bloc persona. Well worth seeing.
I came away with a different view of what was being said. Being a combat veteran (vietnam) I saw how the character isolated from family & friends espespecially at the end. Sadly I seen a lot of myself. The average person would have a hard time understanding that.
Mark Steven Johnson's Killing Season is a hard movie to take seriously, which is particularly unfortunate since it deals with such weighty issues as genocide, the ethical compromises that everyone makes in combat, and the lingering effects of wartime decisions on participants years down the line.
The pretentious, preposterous, dueling-dialect flameout called Killing Season has to stand as one of the biggest missed opportunities in iconic matchups.
Cheaply made, dramatically inept and staggeringly dull despite a running time that only clocks in at maybe 80 minutes tops before the end credits begin, it is so devoid of passion, energy and intelligence that it makes one wonder why those responsible even bothered to make it in the first place.
De Niro mostly looks miserable and very tired (a document glimpsed on-screen hilariously claims his character was born in 1970) and prattles on endlessly about forgetting the past.
I'm not sure how to put this in words but it felt like there were too many times when one of the characters managed to escape certain death only because of stupidity on the other guys part. I was really hoping for a good game of cat mouse where they actually outsmart eachother, instead the cat just keeps releasing the mouse and tables are turned every time. Definitely not going to get any Oscar nominations, but worth a watch if you are bored. Just pirate it, even though I was disappointed I didn't feel like I was cheated out of 90 minutes.
The Killing Season was one of those movies that you're not quite sure how it gets made. Who comes up with the idea of having John Travolta play a Serbian and have a battle with Robert De Niro? Honestly, it actually wasn't that bad of an idea but it was just such a slow movie that it made it difficult to watch at times. If this film was any longer I might've fallen asleep. Some of the plot points were a little weak also and Johnny T's accent, while not bad, isn't good enough to make you forget it's John Travolta. Overall, not a terrible movie but pretty mediocre in general.
"Killing Season" 10 Scale Rating: 3.0 (Awful) ...
The Good: On a basic level, the story isn't bad.
The Bad: The execution, however, was terrible. Straight-forward and dull, the film feels way longer than it's 1:30 run time. The nail in the coffin was John Travolta's horrid accent.
This film is interesting in the thriller genre and wants to become an anti-war film from two opposing perspectives in the war. These two angles are from the point of view of one old Serbian soldier and the other a US Army colonel in the Bosnian war. . The film has superficial dialogues and war slogans. And it remains at this level and does not go beyond.. But the film is neither an anti-war work nor a war, and only on the level of the attractiveness of the acting of two legends and stars of the world, namely Robert De Niro and John Travolta, the film remains under the shadow of these two actors and the scene It contains interesting action throughout the film.
John Travolta plays the role of Vengeful Ex-Soldier who was shot during the Bosnian War in a war crime by some bad Americans shooting bad Serbian war criminals. Specifically it’s suggested he may have been shot by Robert De Niro who plays Colonel Benjamin Something. Now 18 years later, Vengeful Ex-Soldier has bought some American military personnel files off a bloke in a pub. One of the files is on Colonel Benjamin Something. “I have been waiting 18 years to do a revenge film with De Niro” says Vengeful Ex-Soldier to the bloke in the pub, who seems to be losing interest.
Imagine if you will, John Travolta attempting a Serbian accent. Imagine what that would be like for 90 minutes. Yep, it’s as bad as you just imagined. Travolta’s awful accent competes for ridiculousness with his ‘hair’ which at times appears to be a specially designed swimming cap and at others a bald head that has been very neatly coloured in with very black permanent marker.
This is so rubbish in so many ways, it seems so little effort has gone into the enterprise, that it has an active contempt for the viewer. It openly defies you to bother summoning the will to dislike it. Or sit all the way through it. I managed it in three chunks. Both actors seem to be putting in the bare minimum effort; the extended dialogue scene between the two in Colonel Something’s cabin looks like a half-arsed script read through/failed improvisation that got left in by **** action is limp, the script is nothing, the performances are shambolic.
I expect this kind of nonsense from Travolta, but the disappointing thing is I have come to expect it from De Niro. It’s sad and perplexing to watch him drive nails into the coffin of a once brilliant career that already has more nails in it than it could ever possibly need. Nothing is getting out of that coffin Bobby, why are you doing this?
Full review at ponderflix on wordpress.