Hunted, The
Director William Friedkin states in his commentary: “I feel that any story that works on any level in some way is dealing with the eternal verities as expressed, for example, in the Old and New Testament.” The film opens up with the voice of Johnny Cash reciting the famous lyrics from Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited,” lending an ominous tone from the beginning: “God said, ‘Abraham, kill me a son...’ Friedkin later adds in his commentary that he wanted that Dylan lyric, but delivered intelligible. “To me, hearing the Dylan lyric come from Johnny Cash is worth making the film for.” Wow! That’s the kind of Director whose movies I wanna see! Besides the obvious biblical metaphor of tracker L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones) having to sacrifice the surrogate “son” he trained in Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro), there is plenty to like here. The action starts quickly and never lets up; all the while letting the viewer take in the beautiful Northwest in and around Portland, Oregon. The knife fight scenes are especially intriguing, as the two fighters stay focused on the point of attack and are always agressively going to that point. Here is another DVD where the extras make even a great flick even better, packing in a ton of insightful and educational information. And when the credits roll, we’re treated to another biblical Cash gem – “The Man Comes Around.” Nice. [Paramount / Doug Van Pelt]
Ratings:
Obscenities: 14
Graphic Violence: 05
Nude Scenes: 00
% Spiritual Relevancy: 98
This DVD review was printed in ISSUE 103 of HM Magazine.
DVD rating key:
Obscenities (fka: BL (Blue Language)) # of “blue” / cuss words.
Ideal rating = 0
Graphic Violence (fka: BG (Blood ‘n’ Guts)) # of scenes with graphic violence.
Acceptable rating = <50
SC (Spiritual Conversations) An arbitrary rating based on the ease of starting a conversation on spiritual things.
Ideal rating = 50+
Nude Scenes (fka: NP (Naked People)) # of nude scenes.
Ideal: 0 (A rating of less than 1 signifies questionable scenes)
©2003 HM Magazine - All Rights Reserved.
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