lung cancer, Steve McQueen plays bounty hunter Ralph “Papa”
Thorson. Caught between his old school lifestyle and his pregnant
girlfriend, Papa chases down bail jumpers.
Directed by
Buzz Kulik Starring Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, LeVar Burton, Kathryn
Harrold
Why I Liked It – McQueen, Wallach, and Burton
plus a car stunt.
There’s not a lot to like here.
McQueen was trying to relaunch a stalled career. This was the third
of three poor quality movies he’d made, but it was the only one to
make any money (it roughly doubled the production costs). The problem
is that “The Hunter” never decides what kind of movie it wants to
be. Action movie? Comedy? Biopic? (The movie draws on the life of the
real Ralph Thorson, who would die in a car bomb explosion eleven
years after the movie) My bet is that McQueen and company saw the
success that Clint Eastwood enjoyed with the “Any Which Way But
Loose” films a couple years before and tried for that. While
McQueen could be funny, it never works here. The script is fine but
uninspired, and the cast has the ability to pull such a movie off.
But it never happens. So I’m betting the problem was with the
director. This was Buzz Kulik’s last feature film, most of his
career was in television. McQueen’s reputation was that he was
tough to direct. There had been five directors by the time his
next-to-last movie ended production (“Tom Horn”). There’s a
central vision for this movie that is lacking.
Add in a
putrid soundtrack, and a dumb ending, and there’s not much left to
get excited about here.
So what IS good here? McQueen still had that screen
charisma, and that makes the movie endurable. Kathryn Harrold has
little to do but is lovely to look at. Eli Wallach does some of his
patented grump with a heart of gold schtick, and LeVar Burton has a
fun, small role as one of the fugitives Thorson picks up. Oh, and
there’s a classic car stunt.
Hmmmm, anything else?
Nope.
Rating – ** Not Impressed
Stories Are My Life 
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