The Hunter – Dvd Review

Posted by Kerry M Baker | Published on February 11, 2012

Review of: The Hunter

Dvd Review:: Kerry M Baker

Reviewed by: Kerry M Baker

Rating:: 3

On February 11, 2012

Last modified:April 4, 2012

Summary:

More Details

Although ‘The Hunter’ is adapted from an Australian novel by Julia Leigh and shot in Tasmania, it would still have appeal to many non Australians, primarily because the excellent Willem Dafoe is in the lead role and the cinematography has the almost swoonable beauty and combination of tranquil paradise and rugged, unforgiving, almost primeval forested landscape for which Tasmania is famous.

Dafoe is a mercenary who is engaged by a Biotech company to hunt down the fabled and presumed extinct, Tasmanian tiger. Why ? Because it possessed a venom that could paralyse its prey after a bite and the company want its organs and blood to extract DNA and synthesise the venom for either anaesthetics or possibly a weapon. The fact that it may be the last tiger in existence and that they then instruct Willem to destroy the carcass so that no trace remains – does not bother the company at all.

So Willem arrives in the backwoods and finds that at the place the company have arranged for him to stay – a private house – that the mother is unconscious from a cocktail of prescription drugs, the two small children are running wild, there is no electricity, and the husband and father ( that the company had engaged to find the tiger a year earlier )has disappeared in the woods and presumably met with foul play. So the story begins set against sideline stories such as the ‘greenies’ fighting the logging crews to save the forests, violent hostility to Willem from the locals and a neighbour played by Sam Neill who appears to be looking after the family, but we begin to think he may have had something to do with the death of the father in the woods. Is he friend or foe ?

This played the Toronto Film festival but I have no idea how it was received. From my viewing perspective, the standout highlights were Dafoe’s corporate mercenary- what a great job he did – and the Tasmanian scenery. It is intriguing to use the tiger as the focal point since it is held in most scientific circles that it has not been found since 1936 and the footage of the last one alive, pacing in its cage, is literally the last we will ever see of the creature. So it assumes a Holy Grail or stuff of legend mystique. There are flaws. It often hits us with a slightly bombastic score when none is required. There is no real sense of time. Is Willem there for days ? weeks ? And at times, the pace flags, but overall I liked my visit.