Hunter
“Hunter” is a film with some interesting ideas, but ultimately cannot make them come together in an interesting fashion. It tries to be a psychological thriller and an action movie, but ends up being something more towards the latter than the former. That’s not a bad thing, but to make it work along the lines of a “Blade” or “Night for Day,” which also brought demonic thrills to the modern world, the main character’s arc has to work. Unfortunately, I don’t feel as much for Hunter, the main character, as I should, which is a shame, considering the premise.
When we first meet Hunter (played by screenwriter Jason Keller (credited onscreen as Jason Kellerman), he is on the streets, and having flashes of when he was an MMA fighter. Some of what he sees, however, makes us wonder how strong his grip on reality is, though. He wasn’t always on the streets; it’s been in the recent past, since his wife and daughter were murdered. What he imagines killed them is enough to give anyone pause, especially the counselor (Rachel Cerda) he meets at a homeless shelter who wants him to open up if he’s going to stay there. Is what he sees in his flashes real, though, or just the hallucinations of a troubled mind?
Director David Tarleton does a pretty good job of bringing Keller’s ideas to the screen, especially during the flashbacks and early scenes of him on the streets. As a dramatic work, unfortunately, the psychological underpinnings of the story don’t land the way we hope they would, in part because the performances are unable to sell it. That is why “Hunter” feels like a low-rent version of the films I mentioned earlier rather than a film that could stand next to them; given some of the ideas set up for the main character of Hunter in this film, it’s the most disappointing thing I can write about it. The ideas deserve better than how they are presented.
HUNTER TEASER TRAILER from Jason Kellerman on Vimeo.
