The Hunted

How badly bungled is The Hunted? Suffice it to say that 15-year-old Frankie Muniz is a more convincing covert operative as a kiddie spy in Agent Cody Banks than Benicio Del Toro is as the Special Forces assassin gone rogue in director William Friedkin's latest. It's almost laughable that Del Toro makes it across an erupting urban battlefield in the Bosnian War prologue, let alone that he succeeds in escaping from the FBI and hiding in the woods outside Portland, Oregon, killing two hunters at random like some vigilante vegan. This is the kind of low-production-value flick in which people are declared dead when you can clearly see the actor breathing, clothes miraculously dry within two minutes of stepping out of a river, and crashed cars have inconsistent damage from angle to angle and scene to scene. Cripes, it's a movie in which 36-year-old Del Toro (supposedly the best of the best in his army Special Forces unit) can't even beat 56-year-old Tommy Lee Jones (the man sent to hunt him down) in methodical hand-to-hand combat. One long chase scene without any character development or even much in the way of plot, this is not recommended. [Note: Available in either widescreen or full screen versions, DVD extras include audio commentary by director William Friedkin, six deleted scenes, and four making-of featurettes: “Pursuing The Hunted” (8 min.) and “Filming The Hunted” (9 min.) on production, “Tracking The Hunted” (4 min.) on technical aspects, and “The Cutting Edge” (9 min.) about knife fight accurateness and the waterfall scene at Port Angeles, WA's Elwah Dam. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a disappointing film.] (R. Blackwelder)