Tracker (2010)

To me, this movie is perfection.

So much average

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The opening titles give the clue. All the finance has come from one state funded quango or another. This means one thing only: Every money making production company on earth has passed on the script. With good reason. It's lame. The photography and locations are lovely but the locations are nonsense. The act on which the plot depends happens in a port of arrival to NZ. The rest of the action, which is in a day's walk of said port is in the mountains and fjords of the SW S Island. That is impossible. Then we come to casting. My first impression was, Why cast Ray Winstone as a Boer if he can't get within a mile of the accent? After about 20 minutes the answer is clear. Nobody else would do it. It's one of the weakest scripts I've ever suffered. Perhaps Ray doesn't gamble as responsibly as he would have us believe.

You should watch this. Don't read anything more about it needing nothing more than an excellent opportunity to experience another life in highly plausible reality believably. In ways a slow starter, keep it in forefront and appreciate subtle detailing throughout vs occasional and arbitrary emphasis. Appreciate the art of man-tracking and the skills necessary minimalist survival is merely uncomfortable. Anticipate multi-individual characters developing and can't remember when last guessed what will happen next, and was right. Be in that other time where we as a people came from and experience dynamics that develop legends and young people's heroes. Who would you be 100 yrs ago?

Telling a story about the inherent contradictions in both indigenous and colonial cultures and their practices is hardly an easy aim which all too often ends up recklessly spinning off into unfair stereotyping or outright cliché - either quick to villainize colonialists as imperialists who have no sense of moral uprightness and cast the repressed indigenous peoples of some region as morally perfect peoples living in a utopian integration with nature ... or the other way: the way conquerers often told the story lauding the good empire and denigrating the savages. This movie commits neither error. It explores the stereotypes and the moral highs and lows of both groups.I don't think I've seen a more probing and honest film about this sort of subject since Last of the Mohicans (Michael Mann). Though the production quality and budget are not near what they are in a Mann film, there is something actually brilliant about how this film is done WITHOUT the loads of cash which would typically ensure a production like this to be at very minimum, eye-candy watchable. It is a far greater accomplishment and leaves me bewildered why Ian Sharp and Nicholas van Pallandt aren't getting more credit than seems to be showing up here at IMDb.Maori of New Zealand and bushmen of South Africa (though not directly represented in the film) comprise indigenous groups which have had extensive experience with British colonization for a couple centuries and form a layer of history beneath all of the action taking place in this film. The protagonist, Arjan van Dieder (Ray Winstone), plays a similar sort to his role in Cold Mountain as a man with a tough shell from a poisoned and violent past yet with a softer underbelly that could be at times vulnerable to coaxing. Keremea (Temuera Morrison) is the counterpoint to the protagonist (and nearly a second protagonist). The actor plays a Maori which is fitting enough since he IS one. The two actors play perfectly off one another's grit and tenderness.There is one scene I would like to spoil though because the writing/direction is utterly impeccable. At the peak of the film there is a "discovery" which borders on psychologically cathartic and metaphysically salvific: at the cave/fire the fugitive & the tracker share a moment of sorrow separated in time and space but united where the solution to the fated, irresolvable moral entanglement is actually creatively worked out inside. This scene is incredibly powerful and proves this film to be written in a uniquely philosophical way meant to address the role of risk (to the point of self-sacrifice) and creativity (to the point of self- mutilation) when dealing with what seem to be insoluble ethical knots.The scenery throughout the whole film is itself a character and would've been worthwhile without the incredible story-telling!

The cat and mouse/hunter-prey theme is pretty well rought but this film adds a convincing human element to a film that might otherwise get caught up in the landscape or action.The early scenes and some of the supporting cast are a little lackluster, and reminded this viewer how difficult it is for New Zealand films to escape a sort of provincialism (for want of a better word) that can often be detected in kiwi films trying to be 'international'. Winstone, Morrison and Andy Anderson as the colonial tracker all stand out in this.The film has plenty of action and fistycuffs and ballyhoo but the focus is firmly on the tension of the hunt and the connection that forms between Winston and Morrison's characters.Without adding a spoiler I will say the ending, while not disappointing, might have been 'more'. You make your own mind up!