Themes: Lone Wolves, Murder Investigations, Military Life
Main Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio Del Toro, Connie Nielsen
Release Year: 2003
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A rogue special-forces soldier is tracked down by his former mentor in this action thriller from director William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist). In his first role since winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2001, Benicio del Toro stars as Aaron Hallam, one of the U.S. military's most skilled hand-to-hand combat operatives. In the years following his successful assassination of a Serbian warlord in late-'90s Kosovo, Hallam finds himself plagued by traumatic flashbacks of death and destruction, so much so that when he finally returns home, he regresses into a feral, survivalist state in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. There, he deliberately and elaborately hunts and kills poachers who happen to cross his path. When the FBI investigates the murders, they call in the man who taught Hallam everything he knows: retiree L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones). As the instructor pursues his unhinged former pupil, Bonham begins to learn about key events in Hallam's life that pushed him over the edge. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
William McConnell - Consultant/advisor, William Friedkin - Director, Art Monterastelli - Screenwriter, Peter Griffiths - Screenwriter, David Griffiths - Screenwriter, Howard A. Anderson Company - Title Design
In the Pacific Northwest wilderness, two hunters, who are later identified as "sweepers", are tracked and viciously murdered by Aaron Hallum, A former 10th Special Forces Group Green Beret (Benicio del Toro). In the wilderness of British Columbia, L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones), a former special operations instructor, is approached and asked to apprehend Hallum, his former student who has "gone renegade" after suffering severe battle stress PTSD from his time in Kosovo.
Bonham is assisted by an FBI task force, led by a special agent-in-charge Abby Durrell (Connie Nielsen). Despite the continuing presence of the FBI and local authorities, the search begins and ends as a personal battle between Bonham and Hallum, who contends that the murdered hunters were in fact "sweepers" (assassins who kill other assassins who get out of line).
Production
The film was partially filmed in and around Portland, Oregon and Silver Falls State Park. The technical adviser for the film was Tom Brown, Jr., an American outdoorsman and wilderness survival expert. The story is partially inspired by a real-life incident involving Brown, who was asked to track down a former pupil and Special Forces sergeant who had evaded capture by authorities. This story is told in Tom's book, Case Files Of The Tracker.
Reaction
The overall critical reaction to the movie was negative. It scored a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes out of 140 reviews. Many reviewers noted striking similarities to Rambo. Rolling Stone calling it "Just a Rambo rehash,"[2] while Rex Reed of the New York Observer called it a "Ludicrous, plotless, ho-hum tale of lurid confrontation."[3] The UK magazine, Total Film said the film was "scarcely exciting to watch."[4]
A minority of reviewers praised the film, particularly for the fact it kept the special effects and stunts restrained. For example, Roger Ebert said, "We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free speed-up. Not so Friedkin's characters."[5]Time Out London took a similar view.[6]
What the narrator, Johnny Cash, says at the beginning is the first stanza of the Bob Dylan song "Highway 61 Revisited." A short reprise of the stanza is also said as the last lines of the movie. The song is also included in the soundtrack, but in a Johnny Cash version.
