Steve McQueen's last movie presents him more or less successfully turning over a new leaf, less cool, more wrinkled, and easy-going almost to a fault. And funny. "The Hunter" is maybe the one time McQueen gave a naturally comic performance on film.
Telling someone they drive like Steve McQueen is usually a kind of compliment, but not if you mean the character he plays here, then-modern-day bounty hunter Ralph "Papa" Thorson. Thorson is utterly inept behind the wheel, struggling with parallel parking and stick shifts. He must also deal with his girlfriend's pregnancy, which means taking on dangerous parole violators he'd rather leave to another guy.
"I'm getting too old for this bleep," he says, coining a phrase later immortalized by the "Lethal Weapon" series of action comedies.
Directed by TV veteran Buzz Kulik with much of the texture of a "Rockford Files" episode, including "Rockford" regular Kathryn Harrold playing Dotty the expectant girlfriend, "The Hunter" does struggle with trying to throw in too many dramatic subplots, probably in an effort to showcase McQueen's range.
There's a police buddy who's falling apart. There's a bail-jumper with a penchant for fixing electronics who just needs a second chance. Falling flat especially is a linking sequence featuring a speed freak who's stalking Thorson ("I'm gonna kill Paaaah-paaaah" he says in one ridiculous confrontation scene with Dotty; Tracey Walter has done much better work).
But Kulik gets a fine performance out of McQueen, and some nifty action sequences, particularly one on a Chicago el-train and another of Thorson in a cornfield trying to ride down a pair of dynamite-crazy brothers with a Harvester. McQueen seems to be consciously coming down from his "King of Cool" pedestal; many of the jokes are on him as he's shown to be a stick-in-the-mud spectacles-wearing antique-loving fossil who actually says at one point: "New things are no good." But he inhabits the persona of Thorson in a really cool way, whether he's answering a threatening phone call or reloading his .45.
It's fun to see Eli Wallach back in a McQueen film, too, this time as comic relief as a bail loaner who counsels a pair of worried parents: "Can I talk honestly to you? Your son is a rat." Also back in a McQueen film is Ben Johnson, talking from behind a desk as he always seemed to do with McQueen. His part doesn't add up to much, but it's fun watching him pull a gun on Thorson for McQueen's utterly nonchalant reaction.
Yes, "The Hunter" feels like a pilot to a TV series rather than a movie, but as madsagittarian noted in another review, it could have been a neat series to watch, particularly if we had had McQueen around for another five years to play the role. Instead, he left us wanting more. In show biz, that translates into a kind of success.
Telling someone they drive like Steve McQueen is usually a kind of compliment, but not if you mean the character he plays here, then-modern-day bounty hunter Ralph "Papa" Thorson. Thorson is utterly inept behind the wheel, struggling with parallel parking and stick shifts. He must also deal with his girlfriend's pregnancy, which means taking on dangerous parole violators he'd rather leave to another guy.
"I'm getting too old for this bleep," he says, coining a phrase later immortalized by the "Lethal Weapon" series of action comedies.
Directed by TV veteran Buzz Kulik with much of the texture of a "Rockford Files" episode, including "Rockford" regular Kathryn Harrold playing Dotty the expectant girlfriend, "The Hunter" does struggle with trying to throw in too many dramatic subplots, probably in an effort to showcase McQueen's range.
There's a police buddy who's falling apart. There's a bail-jumper with a penchant for fixing electronics who just needs a second chance. Falling flat especially is a linking sequence featuring a speed freak who's stalking Thorson ("I'm gonna kill Paaaah-paaaah" he says in one ridiculous confrontation scene with Dotty; Tracey Walter has done much better work).
But Kulik gets a fine performance out of McQueen, and some nifty action sequences, particularly one on a Chicago el-train and another of Thorson in a cornfield trying to ride down a pair of dynamite-crazy brothers with a Harvester. McQueen seems to be consciously coming down from his "King of Cool" pedestal; many of the jokes are on him as he's shown to be a stick-in-the-mud spectacles-wearing antique-loving fossil who actually says at one point: "New things are no good." But he inhabits the persona of Thorson in a really cool way, whether he's answering a threatening phone call or reloading his .45.
It's fun to see Eli Wallach back in a McQueen film, too, this time as comic relief as a bail loaner who counsels a pair of worried parents: "Can I talk honestly to you? Your son is a rat." Also back in a McQueen film is Ben Johnson, talking from behind a desk as he always seemed to do with McQueen. His part doesn't add up to much, but it's fun watching him pull a gun on Thorson for McQueen's utterly nonchalant reaction.
Yes, "The Hunter" feels like a pilot to a TV series rather than a movie, but as madsagittarian noted in another review, it could have been a neat series to watch, particularly if we had had McQueen around for another five years to play the role. Instead, he left us wanting more. In show biz, that translates into a kind of success.