Advertisement
Advertisement

Gere saves confused film

Starring Richard Gere and Terrence Howard, The Hunting Party is a mildly entertaining political thriller about war and the courage of ordinary people doing the right thing in a world of fear.

Gere plays Simon, a charismatic TV news reporter who ventures into the world's bloodiest war zones with his cameraman Duck (Howard).

But everything changes when Simon has a meltdown during a live broadcast. The star reporter's career goes down the drain while Duck gets promoted.

Five years later in Sarajevo, Simon runs into Duck and tells him he knows where Bosnia's most wanted war criminal, 'The Fox', is hiding. Will the pair, mistaken as a CIA hit team by locals, live to tell the tale?

Written and directed by Richard Shepard, and based on an Esquire article, What I Did on My Summer Vacation, by Scott Anderson, the film is variously tense, dark and funny.

Yet Shepard seems unable to decide whether he is directing a thriller or a satire - the movie veers between comedy, action and dark moral lessons.

Fortunately, Gere delivers an accomplished portrayal of a world-weary reporter.

Gere is no Humphrey Bogart, but still Simon is the kind of old-school screen heroes rarely seen on screen today.

'Putting your life in danger is living. The rest is just television,' says Simon. This intelligent line alone makes sitting through the uneven movie worthwhile.

Post