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"I trained him to survive. I trained him to kill."
While we watch the ethnic cleansing amid all the explosions in the city we see a squad of American soldiers who
silently and with intent of purpose approach the city, unseen. One soldier in particular slithers through the rubble
like an unseen snake, silently and deadly winding his way towards his prey. While this is going on we see soldiers
rounding up men, women and children and throwing them to the ground. They then proceed to pour ammo clips into the
bodies well after they are dead. These scenes are brutal to watch and are very upsetting. One scene has a little girl
coming out of hiding and walks up to a pile of bodies that were just killed, She has no real emotions on her face as
she searches for and finds her teddy bear. She hugs it and walks away seemingly unaffected. The director has obviously
shown us these scenes so that when the one soldier reaches his target, the commander, and quickly dispatches him to
whatever hell he belongs in, we in no way feel even a smidgeon of sympathy for him as he lies with his throat cut,
bleeding into the ground. What is disturbing is how efficiently his life was taken.
"Your rifles against my knife."
The scene changes to a military base where Sargeant Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro) is awarded a silver cross
for his bravery in action. He is being awarded for being a silent and efficient killer for his government. Hallam
unfortunately suffers from battle stress and has constant, terrible nightmares of what he has seen and done. His
nightmarees are filled with the screams and crying of the helpless and dying. Things are not good for Aaron Hallam,
and soon it will get worse.
"I thought you were on the wagon?"
"Wheels fell off."
In a beautiful snow covered forest we are introduced to L.T. Bonham played by Tommy Lee Jones. He is following
a trailer of blood staining the white carpet of pristine snow. The trail leads to a magnificent white wolf which is
bleeding from a leg and now he is trapped in a rope snare. The tracker calms the animal down and frees it and then
patches the leg. He watches as the animal walks back into the forest. L.T. is there working for an animal protection
group. L.T. is a tracker who was trained by his father to be a tracker. He is one of the best. L.T. was also a
freelance trainer for the military who not only taught soldiers to track but also to kill. His six steps to cutting a
man to death with a knife is really nasty. Here is a man who is a contradication because he taught men to kill,
efficient and mercilessly and yet he himself has never taken a life.
"You need all that equipment to kill a deer?"
"That's how we make sure they're dead."
Silver Falls, Oregon is where we catch up to deerhunters, two of them, hunting in a fall forest. They armed with
expensive rifles with high powered scopes. Weapons that are two powerful for the deer hunt as they are rememinded by
a disembodied voice echoing through the woods. The voice questions their need for these weapons. Why not hunt with
knives and show the prey the proper reverence they deserve. To show them he throws a a knive that pierces a small
tree. The hunters become angry and begin to hunt their stalker.
"If I'm not back in two days, it'll mean I'm dead."
The stalker moves through the forest like a phantom all dressed in black camoflague. The hunters begin to panic as he
taunts them. The first hunter is caught in one of his snares and is quickly and efficiently disposed of. The second
one soon becomes a victim of Aaron Hallam.
"He's one of yours, isn't he?."
The FBI investigate the murders as other murders were committed in other states. They bring in their contract tracker,
L.T. to check out the crime scene in Oregon and hunt down the killer. L.T. works with FBI agent Abby Durrell
(Connie Nielsen) and Agent Harry Van Zandt (Ron Canada). L.T. tracks down Aaron and realizes that
Hallam was one of his former students. We discover that Aaron has a greater reverence and respect for animals than he
does for people. His sole reason for killing all these hunters was because they disrespected the lives of their prey
hunting them with ludicrous weaponery.
"Remember me? You taught me to kill."
"I taught a lot of people."
The fight sequences between L.T. and Aaron are realistic and not composed of the usual impossible Hollywood fights.
They fight with sticks and knives, rolling around the ground tussling and tackling each other. Aaron is finally
subdued with a tranquillizer dart and transported back to the city for questioning.
"He's one of them. They'll handle it."
Aaron is an enigma. He anwers questions with more questions but when he mentions Operation Black Eagle, L.T. quickly
warns him to stop talking. Van Zandt is approached by two special government agents who have papers to release Aaron.
Aaron Hallam is officially missing in action and can not be charged for murder or any other crime. Aaron hallam does
not exist. The government has created a killer to use for their purposes and must therefore protect him. The agents
remove him by truck where they inist that since Aaron is losing his mind, he must take a special poison. Now of
course we know that somehow he has to escape or we wouldn't have a very long movie, right.
"Once you able to kill mentally, the physical part will be easy. The difficult part will be turning it off."
Besides the obvious similiarities to RAMBO this movie reminds me of a nouvella I once read about a future
where mankind fought wars with only one soldier representing each country. The sole surviving winner would not only
earn his country the power to rule over the others for a period of years but it would also grant the last
surviving soldier unlimited rights. Since the soldiers were trained with no morality and brutal killing skills they
could not be treated like other men. This winning soldier could do anything he wanted until the next combat, years
later. He could kill anyone or do what ever else he wanted. He could steal from you or even take your spouse for his
pleasure and there was nothing that could be done against them. They had carte blanche as payment for service to
their country. A scary proposition isn't it. Yet here in this movie we see the same situation. Do any of you doubt
that there exists the possibility for this situation being possible today; I doubt it.
"I'm so happy to see you."
Throughout the film we watch Aaron do what he does best, elude and kill the enemy. He has no feelings about what he
does, it is just as normal to him as a bodily function. The only time we see any real spark of humanity towards people is after he
escapes from the special government agents who are out to terminate him. Aaron goes to the home of his ex-girlfriend to help
her and her daughter. The girlfriend, Irene Kravitz (Leslie Stefanson) does not want him to be there anymore. She feels
he abandoned them, not knowing anything about who Aaron really is or why he disappears at various times. The daughter played by
Jenna Boyd loves Aaron and wants him there. Loretta loves to listen to Aaron, especially when he teaches her about
tracking and how animals hunt. During these times we see that underneath the killers surface is still a man who can love children.
The death of children that he witnessed in Kosovo affected him deeply and we can see that children would never be his victims. I get
the impression that the director wants us to see that Aaron visualizes animals as children and that they need to be protected.
Friedkin, I feel injected this scene in the middle of the mayhem so that we can sympathize to the plight of Aaron Hallam.
Underneath the surface he is a caring man who was turned into a killing machine; I'm sure he thought he could lead a normal life,
unfortunately his environment rules his conscience. The other sign that Aaron really cares for Irene and Loretta is that had returned
to give them an envelope full of money to get away before government agents arrive to expunge their existence so that his existence
can be denied. He warns them that they will be coming to hurt them.
"I have to live with what I've done."
The film takes us through flashbacks to Aarons training by L.T. in the military. We witness the deadly arts all these special soldiers
were taught. This is how he was made into the killing machine he is now. L.T. remembers all this with no sense of pride only regret
what he has done to Aaron. This is the motivation that drives L.T. to track Aaron down in some spectacular sequences. The
sequence that is particularily memoriable is the elevated subway train scene on the bridge. I think you will be impressed by this and
many of the other sequences between these two men.
"L.T., I don;t think I can do this anymore."
I highly recommend this film to those who like action films. To those who do not I recommend THE HUNTED because of
the more socially conscience layers under the action and besides William Friedkin films should always be seen by everyone. Yeah,
I'm being bossy, but heck I like this director's films and so should you.
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