The Hunted

Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro) is a “killing machine”, shaped by the military, and traumatized by Kosovo. L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones) is the man who trained him, a legendary tracker and military adviser who “doesn’t do that thing any more”. Hallam, apparently driven insane by the ghosts that haunt him, kills some hunters in the Oregon forest. The FBI bring in Bonham to hunt him down. Capture, escape, capture, escape, near miss, final resolution. Yawn. There are occasional hints that these characters are more than just cinematic stereotypes: Hallam was involved with a woman and her daughter before he went AWOL; there’s the suggestion that his killing spree was actually a covert government/military mission; and was there a reason that LT never answered his letters? But the film never properly asks these questions, let alone answers them. As a result, it’s impossible to care about the characters and what happens to them. The film is tense and action-packed, but ultimately completely soulless.