A soldier (Benicio del Toro) with PTSD takes to the Portland, Oregon woods in Rambo-like fashion. He's paranoid and kills a couple of businessmen from nearby Medford who were weekend deer hunters. The soldier believed the men were CIA spooks sent to find him. The film reveals that he's a Special Forces operator named Aaron Hallam who is AWOL. Hallam is shown to be haunted by his service during the Kosovo War, where he assassinated high priority targets with his hand-forged combat knife. The knife and others like it were forged by Hallam and the others he trained with and is a weapon of significance in the film. An FBI-led manhunt manhunt begins with Special Agent Abby Durrell (Connie Nielsen), who's assisted by L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones). Bonham was a civilian survival and combatives expert who instructed Hallam during his advanced training. Bonham is a recluse but the FBI bring him into the investigation as a consultant. He's able to identify the specific type of knife and footwear, a moccasin with no tread, used by the killer. It turns out Hallam felt a paternal connection to Bonham that the latter didn't reciprocate. Bonham reveals during a conversation with Durrell that he was never in the armed forces because his father, an Army colonel, had kept him from enlisting after his older brother was killed in Vietnam. His father was also an outdoorsman and survivalist who taught Bonham everything he knew. Hallam becomes more violent and dangerous as the manhunt for him tightens and increases in size. Bonham and Hallam are forced to confront each other in a strange almost kung fu movie style student-mentor battle. There are a few problems I had with this movie. Why would a Special Forces soldier have a hand-forged knife as his only weapon? If the FBI and police had arrested an armed and dangerous fugitive with specialized military training wouldn't he be in a maximum security lock up? A civilian would probably not be allowed to interrogate him either. Oh, well. The Oregon wilderness of Silver Falls State Park where the wilderness scenes were shot is magnificently beautiful. The combat is intense and well-choreographed. It was base on the Filipino martial art of Kali. Kali relies on close-quarters grappling, striking, stick and of course knife fighting. It resembles the close combat style featured in the Bourne films with Matt Damon.
Review of The Hunted
