The Hunting Party, directed by Richard Shepard(Ugly Betty, Criminal Minds) is a film which mixes political consciousness, moral righteousness and dark comedy to great effect. Based on the 2001 Esquire article "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" by jour-nalist Scott Anderson, Hunting Party(originally titled Spring Break in Bosnia) is a somewhat fictionalized account about how a group of journalists chose to track down and attempt to capture two of the most notorious war criminals of the Serbo-Croatian conflict, which also saw the extermination of thousands of Muslims in an effort by Dr. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to "cleanse" the country.
A few of the fictionalized highlights: There were five reporters who headed into the village of Celebici in Republika Srpska, not just three. The character of "The Fox" is an amalgam of both Karadzic and Mladic. The female character Mirjana(Diane Kruger of National Treasure and Troy) was actually a guy. Also, there was no real-life Marda(played by Croatian actress Kristina Krepela), for which I'm truly glad, as her story is among the most tragic in the film.
Our story heads off with the introduction of war correspondent Simon Hunt(Richard Gere) and his cameraman/best friend Duck (Terence Howard). The pair are inseparable as they travel from war zone to war zone, always in the thick of humanity's latest night-mare and receiving awards and women along the way. After a particularly nasty incident in Bosnia, Simon has a meltdown on the air and is subsequently fired. Duck is eventually promoted and given a cushy job, allowing his own journalistic skills to soften while he caters to the whims of self-involved anchormen like Franklin Harris(James Brolin).
Years later, on a network jaunt to postwar Bosnia, Duck hap-pens to meet up with Simon once more and comes to find out just how unkind the years have been to his friend. In the last decade, Simon has taken jobs at whatever networks he can, each time sliding down lower and lower on the rungs of failure's ladder. It's come to the point where he's doing placement spots for Polish and Jamaican tv, among other foreign outlets. But Simon has a plan: through an unnamed source, he's managed to find out that The Fox--the most notorious war criminal of the Bosnian war--is holed up in a nearby town, and he believes that it's possible to not only find The Fox, but to capture him as well. Initially believing Simon's talk to be nothing but that, Duck comes along for the ride--bringing a network executive's wide-eyed and naive son, Benjamin(Jesse Eisenberg) in tow. During their inquiries into The Fox's where-abouts however, the local authorities and others come to believe that Simon and his friends aren't actually journalists, but are instead a covert CIA hit squad out to liquidate The Fox once and for all. Content to play along with the misconception because they believe more intel will come of it, the trio is unprepared for the dangerous turn their ploy takes when The Fox becomes aware of their existence and decides to hunt them down instead.
While the centerpiece of the movie is obstensibly the hunt for The Fox, a main part of the story's focus is both the reestablish-ment of Simon and Duck's friendship, along with Benjamin losing his journalistic war zone cherry(he's in Bosnia because his father thinks that being there will make him into a man. Boy, does it!). Jesse Eisenberg(The Village, Cursed) is a treat as newbie Benja-min, and holds his own remarkably well against two seasoned vets like Gere and Howard. As always, Terence Howard's performance is a study in exacting measurements of grace and power. And the role of Simon Hunt affords Richard Gere what could very well be the best of his performances in recent memory, at once uniquely humorous and darkly intense. Director Shepard also wrote the script, and it serves to perfectly balance the dark humor within with the loss of human decency in the commitment of war atrocities.
The Hunting Party, for all its detours through the Bosnian back-roads, works because of the harmonious alignment of script, direc-tor and cast. It leans a bit too political towards the end, thrusting its own political beliefs upon the viewer rather than just letting the three main characters' story play out on its own as it should. It is a blatant indictment of the Bush administration, even though it tries to be a neutral sounding board for humanity's consciousness. Still, there are moments of extreme tension, although the ending and depiction of The Fox's final fate is a bit too pat. What happens--or doesn't--with The Fox is quite Hollywoodized and has nothing to do with the reality of what actually happened. Then again, perhaps the film is only following its own internal logic on this point, as evidenced by the statement Duck makes to young Ben: "In war what you see, and what really happened, are sometimes two very different things."
The same could be said of the original Esquire article and this movie. Although the article is incredible enough, and the few minor artistic licenses director Shepard chooses to utilize do not hurt the overall plan in the slightest. The Hunting Party is one of the better films in recent experience, with good interplay between the main characters and a winning story overall.
And it's reassuring to finally see Richard Gere back in good form once more.
Official Archives of LanceReviews...
Pulp Fiction
A true story gets "Hollywoodized"--but still works
A semi-fictionalized account of a true story still works, thanks in no small part to its solid cast.
Richard Gere and Terence Howard play a newscaster and cameraman who bond through the horrors of war.
Gere's turn as a down-and-out failure of a reporter ranks as one of his best performances in recent memory.
Joined by journalistic newbie Ben(Jesse Eisenberg), the trio sets out to capture a war criminal no one can find.
