"The hunted" (2003).

[Neville]

Well, the good news are that Friedkin still has it. Talent, I mean. You may love him or hate him, but the man is talented. And if his last film works to some extent is thanks to him. In its tight, muscular 88' of extended chase between a retired army instructor (Tommy Lee Jones) and one of his formers students turned berserk, there is not a single unnecesary second or frame. Just action, adrenaline pumping and more action.

And that is the problem. There is no suspense beyond the carefully staged action scenes, no soul in the characters, no character development at all. And no particular meaning on everything that goes on. I personally enjoyed this spartan actioner. It is an honest, well made movie, but if you are looking for something with enough meat to discuss when the lights of the cinema come back to life, you have been wathing the wrong movie.

[The Burgomaster]

I'm a Friedkin fan, so I will probably see this movie.

I think that Friedkin's SORCERER is one of the greatest "sleepers" of all time. I can't believe that it did so poorly at the box office. Way back in the day, Siskel and Ebert had a discussion about this movie and they said that it probably failed at the box office because of the title. Some people thought that it was another horror movie, like THE EXORCIST, so they did not go to see it. Other people thought that it was a horror movie and DID go to see it, but were disappointed because it was NOT a horror movie. As a result, it bombed.

If you want a REAL treat, get your hands on a copy of THE WAGES OF FEAR, which is the French film that Friedkin remade as SORCERER. As for adventure and suspense, THE WAGES OF FEAR is an all-time classic. The editing of the final few seconds is of film is one of the most clever and ironic editing jobs I have ever seen.

Anyway . . . how the hell did I get so far off the topic?

*
*
*

[Evan3]

Burgo, than what is sorcerers about?

Anyways, I dont think that being a pure blooded no character developed movie is bad unless the actors and/or script make it bad.

For instance Predator is an excellent movie with no character development, lots of tense scenes and a decent script. As a result, it is a great movie.

On the other hand there is drek like XXX (and almost any other Vin Diesel flick) that just stinks and does pretty much nothing but eye candy.

So which was the hunted????

[The Burgomaster]

Evan3 wrote:

> Burgo, than what is sorcerers about?

SORCERER is a movie starring Roy Scheider. It is about a bunch of guys in South America who have to drive 2 trucks loaded with nitro glycerine 200 miles through the jungle to put out an oil fire. It is really intense. There are some great scenes of the trucks rolling across treacherous terrain while the nitro glycerine in the back keeps shifting and sliding, just waiting to explode. In the best scene, they drive across a rickety old bridge made of wood and ropes during a rain storm. It's really suspenseful. The name of the movie comes from one of the trucks, which the guys name SORCERER.

The original version, THE WAGES OF FEAR is in black & white, with subtitles. It is also extremely suspenseful. There is a great scene where one of the trucks is trying to make a really wide turn and it needs to back up to the edge of a cliff to do so.

I read somewhere that Hitchcock wanted to remake this movie, but he never got around to it.

I highly recommended both versions, but I think the original (starring Yves Montand, I believe) is a little better than the Roy Scheider version.

*
*
*

[Neville]

I haven't seen "Sorcerer" yet, but I will as soon as I can. I saw the french original, "The wages of fear", a few weeks ago and loved it.

[JohnL]

[The hunted]
I think I saw this way back when it was named First Blood...

[Squishy]

"Sorcerer" has the best soundtrack for a movie I've never seen. I played that Tangerine Dream tape until it broke. Have to get it on CD...