Monday, July 16, 2012

The Hunter - movie

What a horrible piece of crap!  I chose this movie because of Willem Dafoe who normally isn't a part of such drivel.  The movie indeed started out with a good storyline and rather interesting characterization.  Then the plot went to hell in a hand basket.  This guy is hunting an endangered animal for it's benefit to science. They want the DNA.  Nothing wrong with that.  And given high powered rifles and such the normal thing would be for a hunter to use a tranquillizer. That's what Canadians do with their endangered species. They shoot them with tranq guns sometimes from helicopters. Then they do all manner of alien things like blood, urine, feces, saliva sampling and nail clipping. The animals wake up and get away from that spot where they woke up as fast as they can then tell tales to their children about being anally probed by aliens.
In this movie some twisted sort of eco freak movie for people who don't know diddly squat about the woods They have the hunter killing the endangered species then cremating it. Since that was a true spoiler of the movie its not spoiler of me to tell you this. I just wish someone had saved me from inaniety that began somewhere in the middle of the movie.  This was followed by all sorts of sickly European  romanticism about  dead animals which thankfully  stopped short of some grotesque sexual ritual.  
Hunters don't waste and killing for no reason is the stuff of city folk.  The endangered species of the planet are predominantly a product of these sensitive but stupid city folk with lots of pathos and no sense.  The  writers are right out of their depth and would do well to write soap operas for suburbanites.  Sadly though, one has a sense that such cupid stupidity is aimed at commercial exploitation not only of Gaia  but tragically others who would watch this movie mistaking its dreadful shallowness for depth.   There was  even the gratutous attack on loggers as if loggers are intrinsically evil.  Surprisingly fisherman and farmers weren't somehow besmudged by this sanctimonious silliness of a movie.  What a waste of time!
Daniel Nettheim is the director. If I had to guess he ran over budget about the time the good guys in this morality play rejected Australian beer and began smoking dope. There was a real hurry to end the thing, like the way one hurries to flush the toilet after something really foul has occurred in a public toilet.
Vincent Sheehan, the producer shows bad judgement and poor taste.
The unforgiveable is the pretentious Julia Leigh,  writer of the Hunter.  She should stick to her ivory tower genre of  fairytale princess porn and stay out of the wilderness where she hasn't a clue.
Willem Dafoe and Sam Neil despite their very best could not save this dinosaur.

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