The old slogan in the world of entertainment is "You ain't seen nothing yet." In the world of televised news coverage, one might say the equivalent could be "You ain't seen nothing -- and you won't." That doesn't mean that local, network or cable news divisions are holding back on details, after all, few entities can beat a dead horse like 24-hour cable news programs that latch onto a story and then won't let go, no matter any level of viewer fatigue.
Instead, I'm referring to the fact that such news outfits don't always show us everything in terms of the realities of what nature and people can do to human bodies. Having worked with camera operators and directors, I've heard stories of gruesome sights you'd probably never want to see, and that's just from crime, fire or natural disaster incidents. I can't imagine what TV reporters and their crews witness in wars, cases of genocide, and the like.
In fact, while most of them claim the repeated witnessing of such atrocities eventually hardens them to the point of only seeing the story and not the people in it, you'd think more of them would eventually crack. That's exactly what occurs in "The Hunting Party," writer/director Richard Shepard's follow-up to "The Matador."
In it, Richard Gere and Terrence Howard play the reporter and cameraman duo of Hunt and Duck who've seen it all, and done so all around the world in whatever hotspots lure them in for coverage. The latest is Bosnia, where ethnic cleansing has left too many dead to count. And for reasons that are explained later in the film, Hunt finally snaps while doing a live standup report from the ravaged country, on the evening news, thus effectively ending his career with the network.
With Howard's unnecessary voice-over narration explaining things and filling in the blanks, we learn that five years later, his character is comfortably ensconced as the cameraman for the network's anchor (James Brolin) while Gere's has essentially disappeared (doing small stories for whoever might run them). The two, however, are reunited when they just so happen to be in Sarajevo at the same time, and Hunt convinces Duck that he has the scoop of a lifetime and needs his help.
It turns out he's found the region's most wanted war criminal (Ljubomir Kerekes), but rather than desiring to "shoot" him for a TV interview, Hunt simply wants to shoot him for past atrocities he and his goons committed, including one in particular that directly affected the reporter. On that level, the film sounds like a dramatic thriller about revenge, payback, and justice.
To a degree, it is, but it's also a black comedy of sorts, and it's that very dichotomy (that also existed in Shepherd's previous offering) that ends up bedeviling it, the degree of which will depend on the viewer's acceptance and/or tolerance of basing an action comedy of sorts on real life tragedy.
To be fair, the filmmaker does prepare us for that eclectic mix by stating that only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true. Working from an Esquire article by Scott K. Anderson about a quite similar real-life story, the film plays with and off the fact that such an unusual trio of bounty hunters -- "The Squid and the Whale's" Jesse Eisenberg is present playing the third wheel -- end up tracking down and eventually finding the war criminal when everyone else in the world, including the CIA for whom they're mistaken, has failed.
That makes one wonder if a film about TV crews getting to the Hurricane Katrina victims -- when the U.S. Government stated they couldn't and didn't realize the extent of the disaster until they saw it on TV -- is in the works. That remains to be determined, but it certainly gives you an idea about the difficulty in trying to mine humor from such a dire situation.
Once one accepts that's the way this movie is going to play out, however, it somewhat becomes easier to buy into the offering. Gere, Howard and Eisenberg do make for an appealing and entertaining if unlikely trio (which helps make their interaction more fun to watch), especially when they must deal with the various locals and/or think or run their way out of various predicaments, setbacks, and complications.
Aside from the scenes where we learn the truth behind the catalyst that motivates Hunt's character -- a revelation that unfortunately only reinforces that Gere has troubles convincingly playing deep emotion -- I ended up somewhat liking the film. Some of that stems from that unusual hybrid tone that permeates the work, a quality that made it interesting to yours truly, but might have the reverse effect for some viewers. While it doesn't end up bagging any sort of big cinematic game, "The Hunting Party" fires enough successful shots that it's worth seeing rather than being hidden from viewers. It rates as a 5.5 out of 10.
![[Logo]](/images/screenit_logo2.jpg){kind=logo}
