What a pleasant surprise. When I first saw the trailer for The Hunter I got very excited, but I didn't think it was going to be this good. This film has a nice feel about it, set as it is in the wild and untamed landscape that lies beyond Tasmania's commercial logging activities.
The Hunter, Martin David (Willem Dafoe) is seemingly a haunted lone wolf, yet strangely at ease in the company of the ready-made family who befriend him; quite surreal. The townspeople want nothing to do with the hunter and it becomes quickly evident that his employer, Jack (Sam Neill) isn't telling him the whole story. Martin's mission? To hunt down the last Tasmanian Tiger.
One problem I do have with the movie is about half way through, it was evident to me that while the scenery is gorgeous and the atmosphere is impressive there just wasn't enough tension, so director Daniel Nettheim tries to rectify this lack of tension through the inclusion of the territorial loggers. For some reason their representation and characterisation is comical. They act more like a mad max biker gang, terrorising people by flashing their headlights and firing rifles in the air. They should have been handled a lot more subtly and presented as genuinely threatening.
The final showdown is impressive, I think. I know there's been quite a bit of controversy about the ending. Watch it and think about it for a bit, don't take the ending at face value. I belive the director wanted the movie to continue in the viewers head long after the credits rolled. Why did the hunter do what he did? There's a reason.
-TBC
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