Hunted, The (2003) MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +2 Content: -3

In this action film, retired deep woods tracker and warfare instructor L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones) teams up with FBI agent Abby Durrell (Connie Nielsen) to help find a killer who is targeting deer hunters in the Pacific Northwest. The clues suggest that its Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro), a former student of Bonhams and a master at camouflage and knife play. Bonham is the only one qualified to track him, since he taught him all his moves. Hallam is wiping out the hunters because he hates them for killing animals for sport. Bonham finds Hallams hideout and inside a Bible open to the passage in Genesis where God commands Abraham to kill his son, Hallams apparent justification for his killings. The chase continues from the back woods to the big city as master and student try to outsmart each other.

The Hunted is a gory film with violent scene after violent scene: innocent people murdered in the war in Kosovo, fear shown on the faces of women and children, a dog caught in a hunters trap, a police officer murdered by a knife to the neck, and a hunters face getting slashed with a knife, to name a few. With the U.S. on the brink of war, this films release may be poor timing with its savage and sometimes repulsive warfare. Many of the scenes are not easy to watch. One man examines pictures of murdered, dismembered people and body parts. In the beginning of the film, Gods conversation with Abraham is quoted but it is misquoted; its unclear why. Due to the graphic, excessively brutal violence and foul language, Preview cannot recommend The Hunted.

Preview Reviewer: Lynn Nusser
Distributor: Paramount Pictures