chris-outhouse 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.

GUENOT PHILIPPE I literally fell in love with this western in the late seventies. A true masterpiece for me. Such a shame that this kind of topic doesn't exist anymore. But maybe that's actually the reason why this very same kind of films remains so good to taste, because of its rarity. I think of MAN WHO LOVED CAT DANCING when I watch it again and again. Same scheme, well almost: the tale of an abducted wife who finally prefers to be with her abductor instead of her husband. As another user said, we can see here a sort of metaphor about the US interventionism in Vietnam, as I already told about THE PROFESSIONALS, starring Burt Lancaster. Gene Hackman gives here an outstanding performance who is not so far from the one he will give us in 92, for UNFORGIVEN. A seemingly good abiding citizen, at first sight, but who suddenly appears to be different. What could I say more about it?I prefer watch it another time, probably the 675th one !!!

blackkatdemon The Hunting Party is a good western, but there are a few scene's of nudity that I could really care less for. I'm by far a horror movie fan, and this movie has a lot of gory bloody shoot out scene's in it. The movie is about a group of outlaw's that kidnap a women who they think is a school teacher, so their leader can learn how to read. This movie has you going the good guy is the bad guy, the bad guy is the good guy, and the women is torn between the two.Gene Hackman (Brandt Ruger) play's a really good a**hole in this movie, he plays the bad guy well. Oliver Reed (Frank Calder) play's the leader of the gang who should be a villain, but turn out to be the nice guy. Reed pulls off the American accent pretty d*mn good. You wouldn't know he was British from watching this movie. Mitch Ryan (Doc Harrison) awesome as Doc, only knew him from Dharma and Greg, pretty good performance. Candice Bergen (Melissa Ruger) I didn't recognize at first, since all I remember her from was Murphy Brown, and Miss Congeniality.Brandt Ruger is a rich cattle rancher that if he owns something it's his and no one else, and no one steals from him either. When Frank Calder steals his wife Ruger and his men start hunting down the gang. Using high tech guns that can kill a man from 800 feet away. Ruger's men start taking down Calder's men one by one, it's very bloody and messy. Melissa Ruger and Frank fall for each other, which anger's Brandt even more. When the movie ends, your cheering and going d*mn I didn't see that one coming. It's a good movie, One western that I actually like, and that surprised me a lot.

chaos-rampant A group of hired gunmen travelling north to participate in a range war (presumambly someplace like Kansas or Wyoming, as the story by all accounts seem to take place in the early 1880's) kidnap a hapless woman from a small town while her husband, a mean, sadistic sonofabitch cattle baron, is engaged in a hunting trip with his upper class buddies. Few people in any kind of audience, then or now, would have trouble spelling out this kind of plot in advance, how the woman will fall in love with her kidnapper while the husband realizes she's lost to him forever, but, seeing how this is a 44. Magnum, the most powerful handg- hey, waitaminute. Seeing how this is the pessimistic and violent movie world of the early 70's we're talking about, if it's going to be predictable, you can at least be sure it's going to be bloody and grim and nihilistic in the process.You know it's a grim movie you're going to see when it opens with a shot of Gene Hackman roughing up his wife a little in that particularly mean-spirited way that made him such an endearing villain in the early 70's (and which he reprised for Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN winning his second Oscar) intercut with shots of a cow being slaughtered. At least director Don Medford is upfront about it. The movie remains pretty unflinching in the portrayal of violence. Almost every actor is propped with blood squibs at some point in the film while others not lucky to be shot out of horses in slow motion get knives in their necks and buckshot in their faces. The Hunting Party is dinstictly a product of its time, a loyal retracing of the steps back to THE WILD BUNCH instead of taking the genre to new areas, belonging to that particularly bloody and violent American western niche that followed in the wake of Peckinpah's film (along with others like Chato's Land, The Revengers, The Deadly Trackers etc). Subverting and taking off the rose-tinted glasses the far west mythos was seen with by people like John Wayne, who cared so much about perceived values and ideals he had to make RIO BRAVO in response to Gary Cooper throwing down his star in HIGH NOON, taking a closer, more realistic look, if not at authentic period detail, then at least at how people were shot and killed.All blood and clamor aside however, The Hunting Party is just not a very good movie. Medford's average-to-poor direction and the fact it's 20 minutes too long make sure it won't be seeing top lists anytime soon. And then there's the script. That Brandt Ruger (Gene Hackman) curiously refrains from shooting Frank Calder, the man who kidnapped his wife and whom he specifically set out to kill, when he gets plenty of chances to do so, seems to occur for no other reason than to stretch a final showdown that could have taken place in the first half hour into almost two hours. The acting is in turns okay and wooden, generally of the 'good enough' or 'will have to do' variety. Oddly enough for a cast featuring a man who would go on to win the Oscar that same year for THE FRENCH CONNECTION and kickstart a brilliant career, the best thing about The Hunting Party is a man who made a career out playing Athos in The Three Musketeers. Oliver Reed looks just right for the part, in a role that would be played probably by Richard Boone 20 years earlier and Javier Bardem twenty years later. When he tries to emote and just do anything that doesn't involve looking mean and badass, he faulters, but he looks mean and badass for all but maybe 2 minutes in the film.