[THE HUNTER screens Thursday July 5th at 7:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
Maybe it's because I was being being
slammed with eco-extinction documentaries during the period in which
I saw THE HUNTER, plus I had to review a new Australian sci-fi
novel whose theme is basically that global warming is permanent and
we're doomed, no point even in recycling, g'day mate! But whatever
the reason this dark drama/thriller really got under my skin, in a
way few movies have. I can't call THE HUNTER a masterwork,
exactly, but I can't fault it, either. It's got the plain-spoken
downbeat quality of some of Clint Eastwood's more morally challenging
pictures, like UNFORGIVEN and MYSTIC RIVER. Perhaps if
Eastwood had starred and directed (instead Daniel Nettheim is at the
helm) in this, perhaps some dozen years ago, it would have gotten a
higher-profile theatrical release. Instead THE HUNTER has gone
the limited-run/direct-to-DVD route despite being based on a 2001
novel by Julia Leigh that was bestseller in Australia.
Willem Dafoe, certainly one of our more
Eastwood-ish actors, portrays a steely professional hunter, going by
the assumed name Martin David as he arrives Down Under. Actually
"Martin" is employed by shadowy European biotech company to
hunt and obtain samples (i.e. kill and retrieve) the last surviving
Tasmanian tiger. This predatory animal has been officially listed as
extinct since the 1930s but is still the subject (in real life as
well as Leigh's fiction) of cryptozoological sightings.
Arriving in the wooded hinterlands,
"Martin" finds himself eyed with suspicion by both sides in
the middle of an unbridgeable conflict between roughneck local
lumberjacks who want to continue clear-cutting their local old-growth
forests to save their jobs (seems Australian lumbermen are no
brighter than American ones) and the idealistic "greenie"
activists. A field scientist friendly with the tree-huggers, a man
who seemed to have clues to the elusive Tasmanian tiger, has
disappeared, leaving a wife zombified on prescription drugs and
children fending for themselves.
Masquerading as a fellow naturalist,
Martin ingratiates himself with the forlorn household and turns into
a surrogate head of the family as he pursues his mission, with a side
interest in just what exactly happened to the missing man. In an
atmosphere of growing paranoia and danger he begins to realize just
how lethally ruthless his faraway corporate masters can be when they
get impatient for results.
The film-noir atmosphere makes a stark
contrast with typical Hollywood eco-fare you expect to come out of
today's movie industry, in which there's fun! thrills! adventure!
cartoon villainy! and the mythic mystery animals are usually
Bigfoot or Nessie. Here the Tasmanian tiger slowly evolves in the
viewer's mind (or at least mine) of everything that's been lost or
destroyed with decades of relentless industrial progress and greedy
multinationals. The grim, unsentimental ending is the farthest thing
from the crowd-pleaser pablum that studio focus groups vote over.
Talk about greedy, amoral multinationals.
Yes, it's not the feelgood hit of the
summer. If you want the mass-audience equivalent, I do believe the
CGI movie of Dr. Seuss' environmental storybook THE LORAX is
now out, with the wisecracky cast of celebrity voiceovers. For the
one or two grownups left who go to movies, THE HUNTER should
rightfully haunt and disturb, with its themes of boundless human
treachery, the bleak permanence of species extinction and only a
small token of rebellion on the antihero's part. It got me so that
I've started to read the Julia Leigh novel after the fact, which I
almost never do, and that's something. (3 out of 4 stars)
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