The Hunted (1998)

Touches You

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I stumbled on this movie through my wife's addiction to LMN. After watching it several times I began to see more in the acting than was readily apparent the first go round. Hamlin an Amick are quite good in this, surprisingly so in fact. This could have been, as stated before by others, a really unique and above average TV movie. I wondered what the white wolf had to do with anything? I'm still working on that? However one thing that did ring true was when the Ranger tells Sam that her vehicle might say four wheel drive on it, but it doesn't have the pull. That is so true! I have driven off road for many years and most four wheel drives are just made to get a soccer Mom out of a little snow or mud. Anyway I really do like this film and think the Photography was very well done as was the acting.

An insurance investigator sent to a mountainous wilderness in search of a downed plane encounters a mysterious huntsman.It is a little unfair to deride this as a knock-off of A SIMPLE PLAN as it also borrows from FIRST BLOOD and, notably, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. The result is less than the sum of the parts but still a modestly diverting watch which is better than it deserves to be, largely due to the presence of two fine TV actors.The major draw is the lovely Amick, who manages to remain superbly coiffed and made-up even in extremes, and who exudes a self-confidence the script does not always credit her character with. Hamlin, who sensibly submitted to television's embrace after the movies' rejection, and who is now best remembered for LA LAW, is also a cut above as the grizzled drop-out woodsman. Ironically the film's best moments are the interplay between the two, the action scenes suffering from too many convenient contrivances to convince.Amick and Hamlin are presented as two sides of the same coin: both hunters, though in different environments. The contrast provided by each's struggling in turn to be pre-eminent in the other's world is potentially interesting, as is the question of whether Amick must subvert her humanity in order to survive in a feral world. Unfortunately, neither of these ideas are sufficiently well developed and the film is sunk by its lack of proportion: the main story of her-in-his-world reaching a natural end, only for the him-in-her-world to start up and be played out in a foreshortened coda.Had the film been 15 minutes shorter and better proportioned it might have extended its appeal beyond its leads' respective fanbases.

Amick makes a solid centerpiece as she runs from tree to tree and pillar to post in this lame drama about an insurance investigator who goes deep into a Canadian forest to retrieve $12 million from a downed aircraft...armed with her lipstick and assorted cosmetics. "The Hunted", just another of a zillion or so people-hunting-people flicks, is trite, simple minded, predictable, and full of plotholes. An okay shoot, the story fails early on urging the thumb to inch toward the fast-forward button. Passable and forgettable. (D+)

A weak copy of a great movie - WOUNDED, which starred the SAME woman, but this time being chased by Adrian Pasdar. Check out WOUNDED to see how it SHOULD be done.