I watched this film and kept watching it because of my faith in the main actors. They did not let me down. They are terrific and so are those in supporting roles. But they are working with a flawed story and a flawed script. Three quarters way through, the film starts to drag as basically the same thing keeps happening with predictable symmetry. Reed's companions die off and Hackman's leave him. Hackman and Reed are what the story is about and the hangers on, stuck to each of them, become an irrelevance to be got rid of by the script writers so that the story can reach its climax and conclusion. The fundamental flaw in the story is the barely, if at all, discussed willingness of Hackman's hunting party to go after the kidnappers rather than the animal prey. These are rich, "respectable" pillars of society - not the criminals, murderers or dubious posse characters often depicted in such a manhunt in westerns. That does not make them honourable or give them a conscience but they would think twice, big time, if invited to go on a lynching rather than a planned animal hunt. The ending would have been much more interesting if Reed had used his ingenuity to counter Hackman's long range technology ; if he had thought up an ingenious plan to attack his pursuers, and give Hackman (and us) more of a run for his money than just run, fade away into deep sand.
Review of The Hunting Party
