sharpshtik The propaganda, the plot, the script, the characters, the casting and the acting are awful. This movie is a sloppy mess from top to bottom. Expect left wing propaganda where Muslims are portrayed as peaceful victims and Christians are portrayed as killers. Out of intense, mutual hatred, each side did horrible things in civil wars in the former Yugoslavia, but since socialists, communists and Muslims have been united for at least a century now the left wing media generates lopsided stories based on lopsided reporting. Jesse Eisenberg is one of the worst and most annoying looking and sounding actors in existence, yet he keeps getting cast in movie after movie. The characters are unrealistic, which is consistent with the entire story. The movie comes across as a half-hearted attempt that rushes though a story with one shallow segment after another.

dromasca War is no party. Not even a hunting one. Neither are consequences of war, or trying to make justice and catch war criminals. The Hunting Party written and directed by Richard Shephard whose Matador I have seen a few weeks ago (and liked much more) is good action entertainment, but if you know nothing about the Balkans and the Balkan wars and you rely on this movie in order to get an idea about the tragedies and atrocities that happened 20 years ago in that part of Europe, you can get a distorted image about the region and the history.Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) is a TV reporter who was once famous. While covering the war in Bosnia he had a nervous breakdown during a live coverage of the war atrocities, which cost him his job. A few years later he will be back in the country apparently healing from the wounds of war, trying together with his ex-cameraman (Terrence Howard) and the young apprentice in journalism (Jessee Eisenberg) who happens to be the son of one of the VPs of the TV network they used to work for, to find one of the most famous war criminals who escapes international justice, UN forces and all the spying agencies. No need to say, they will succeed in a few days where all the big fellows failed for years.Judged only as an action movie The Hunting Party is not a bad movie at all. Richard Shephard has a sure hand, and Richard Gere is more than credible in the role of the journalist whose life is turned upside down by war and becomes a war criminals hunter. He actually is the only character that has a motivation to do it in the script, why the other two get attracted into the mortal game is a mystery. There is a big problem with describing such a complex conflict as the Balkan wars through the simplistic simplistic perspective of an action movie, not only because the script takes parts on national lines, but also because many better films have already been made by Serbian, Croat, Bosnian directors about this complex conflict. Films with real dramas, true humans, good guys and villains, not vaudeville ones. In a tentative to distance the story from the action B-movies the heroes see on TV screens on a couple of instances Chuck Norris jumping out of the water to kill the bad guys in one of the flicks of the genre. Unfortunately, this is not enough. The Hunting Party is just by a bit better than the Chuck Norris movies.

Tim Kidner To make a commercially viable film out of a far-from attractive scenario, this film has resorted to low-brow slightly comedic buddy-ism.The three stars, Richard Gere, Terrence Howard and Jesse Eisenberg are so dissimilar, both as actors as in characters - Gere, the silver-haired fox is a drunken senior news reporter who seriously messed up live on air and now has a bounty to find and an axe to grind; Howard, who is black and was Gere's cameraman but since Gere's sacking has been promoted and now has a cushy job and a playing away gorgeous wife. And, the usually very watchable and enjoyable Eisenberg is now a mumbling nerd of a first-time abroad reporter, given the chance only as he's directly related to the vice-president of the TV company.This all sits at odds with the aftermath of the Serb-Croat war and jam- packed into the 100mins running time, is everything from Playboy James Bond, gritty action and soppily stringed pathos. Lots of shuttling back and fore along with the realistic tracking down of 'The Fox', a war criminal wanted by the U.N. These scenes are the sort that shout out for Jean Reno, gruff and mean, not laughably smug Gere and cowardly Eisenberg.Lots of serious issues are dealt with and even more discouraging are the end credits - the usual, serious warning about still-at-large war criminals and the disturbing facts and figures are followed immediately by a sort of Shrek-style comedic take out on what each of the characters then went on to do.To say that this dilutes the film's purpose is an understatement and the reason for my 5/10. For action fans, it's not a bad movie and those who just want to leave their brains in the pub, then it's got some mileage and is entertaining enough and would score 6 or even 7/10.

Boba_Fett1138 This movie boldly claims that it's all being based on true events but like (too) often is the case, this just wasn't true at all. It's all only very merely loosely based on the story of a couple of journalists, which wasn't as spectacular as portrayed in this movie but still was sure far more interesting though.Not hard to see what this movie its problem is; it's far too over Hollywoodized. The three main characters are portrayed as brave heroes, who even risk their lives to capture a war criminal and put an end to a conflict that has been going on for years and years. What arrogance and stupidity. They get themselves into all kinds of predicaments. They get followed, shot at, kidnapped and even the CIA gets involved with their operation. Am I watching a true war drama or a James Bond movie here? It was especially ridicules how they let the Fox be almost directly responsible for the death of Richard Gere characters's girlfriend, while also walking away and staring like a true villain.The character the Fox is never named by his true name but it should be pretty obvious that he was supposed to be Radovan Karadžić. Even the actor that plays him is made to look just like him. I can understand why they changed the character's name though. If they named him Radovan Karadžić people would had known that our 'heroes' wouldn't succeed in capturing him, since Karadžić was still a free man at the time. When the named him just the Fox they knew that some audiences might still have been left in doubt and suspense. But also this is an example of the Hollywoodisation of this movie. It's too busy thinking and worrying about things from a marketing perspective and it doesn't spend enough time trying to tell a good, true story.This movie would had been so much better and more interesting if it was put into the hands of a director who wanted to tell the story in a true, honest and straight-forward way, like perhaps a director like Michael Mann would be capable off. It's a story that really deserved- but also needed some more depth and background. This movie doesn't give you any information or background about the whole Yugoslav wars and its aftermath. It's also a reason why a whole bunch of people, such as for instances Serbs and Bosniaks, feel offended by this movie. It's not a movie about their conflict, pains or emotions, it's a movie about brave heroic Americans, barging in to save the day.But no, also when you look at this movie from a different perspective, so without having in mind that this is supposed to be based on true events, this just isn't a very engaging, interesting, or entertaining movie to watch. It's quite weak in its approach and directing, since it doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind if it wants to be serious and tense, dramatic, or a fun, silly movie. Sometimes it works and blends in well all together for other Richard Shepard movies but just not this time around really. It also makes the entire point that this movie tries to get across not work out properly at all.It attempts to make a point about it how ridicules and fishy it is that after so many years neither a person like Radovan Karadžić or Ratko Mladić got found or caught and could walk around and life freely, while when a couple of journalists attempt to find Karadžić they succeed in only a couple of days. It is of course right about this point but it just doesn't let it come across as anything strong or something that sticks and provokes. I don't think this movie made any people really think about these things and I'm pretty sure Karadžić himself will actually laugh at this movie when he watches it in his cell. It makes the movie even a bit painful, especially when at the end the movie openly and somewhat aggressively questions why Karadžić, Mladić and Bin Laden never got found and caught, three persons who all by now are either caught or killed.OK so on a positive note, I liked some of the acting in this movie. Especially Terrence Howard and Jesse Eisenberg were good in their roles and it was also good to see that they shot this movie at the actually countries the events within this movie took place at, also mostly starring people from those regions in the supporting roles. Too bad that the story and all of its events aren't as authentic and realistic. Completely irrelevant movie, that fails to deliver with either its drama or entertainment. I still didn't hated this movie as much as I probably make it sound right now but it still is really not a movie that I would ever recommend to anyone.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/