The Hunter

Willem Dafoe is a professional hunter. Not of men, though it doesn't seem like it'd be a stretch. But of animals. You need it killed he's your man. Employed by a shadowy biotech who needs samples from a believed to be extinct tiger he heads to Tasmania. A loner by nature he shrugs off the offer of assistance the company tries to force on him in a Paris airport. There's a bad vibe about that call and things begin feel vaguely familiar at that point. But then he arrives at his in Tasmania and checks into his lodging and the movie pattern recognition goes up a notch. Specifically as he meets the family he'll be staying with is when serious moviegoers may will begin to think they know where this is all going. Two kids run around in a quirky and unkempt house while the mother lies in bed appearing comatose. Dad has gone missing on a trip into the wilderness, mom self-sedated into submission, kids adorable but needing of support. Will the Dad have been involved in something related to the reason Dafoe is there?, will he develop a relationship with the woman as he revitalizes their lives and they bring out the long dormant humanity in him? Well ... let's just say that for the most part the biggest surprise of The Hunter is that the producers sprung for the cash to license Springsteen doing I'm on Fire for one of the scenes.

Dafoe's quarry is the believed to be extinct Tasmanian Tiger which the pharmaceutical company needs dead and dismembered. He sets out into the wilderness to find it, and his time alone hunting in the open wilderness forms the best parts of the picture. The locals don't seem to much like him and he suffers indignities ranging from some abuse to the feeling people are always stalking him. I'll skip over the parts where people push him to do things by acting in paranoid ways that I'm not sure really make any sense in the universe of the film (as opposed perhaps to the book on which this endeavor is based). Over time he goes through the expected personal transition that's telegraphed from the start. That feeling of prior knowledge of the plot comes less from the film explicitly foreshadowing a lot, more because that's the way this sort of film goes. There is a diversion from the super obvious, and it's a bit harsh and possibly shocking. But that's mainly because it's easy to mis-read exactly what type of vaguely predictable movie The Hunter is. In the end it's not at all bad, and parts are definitely holding of attention. Though with the exception of the hunting, alone in nature parts which are mostly impressive there's not much that I expect will stand out for me over time. Much as I wanted to like it more.

{ The Hunter screened at SXSW 2012. It is expected to open in Seattle in mid April and is currently available on a variety of video on demand outlets }