The film starts out on fire, as it shows war reporting duo comprised of cameraman Duck (Terrence Howard) and reporter Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) right in the thick of the action and way to close for comfort. At one point during the first scene, Duck reveals that Hunt cultivated his own love for all things dangerous and says in the opening narration that living life on the edge is “truly living.” The two of them had a very successful career going on with many awards and accolades from their fellow media members. But while doing a story covering the Bosnian conflict in the mid 1990, Hunt looses it on national TV and lets the audience know about all the hypocrisy and true horrors that are the real root of the war. After this, he is thrown into obscurity, never to be heard from again, while Duck moves up the ranks in the network and accompanies top anchor Franklin Harris (James Brolin) and young associate journalist (and the network vice president’s son) Benjamin Strauss (Jesse Eisenberg) into Sarajevo to cover the last bit of what’s left of the conflict worth reporting. All things seem in order, until Duck turns in for the night and Simon Hunt is mysteriously waiting for him in his hotel room. The sudden and unexpected reunion is quickly interluded with Hunt saying that he has a story that can “put him back on the map.” While Duck initially declines “getting the band back together” Hunt persists and tells him he has a reliable source that knows the location of The Fox, an elusive Serbian war tyrant that has a rather enticing price tag for his capture. Eavesdropping of the conversation, Benjamin persuades Duck to let him tag along on this journey. What follows is the incredible dive into dangerous Serbian lands to look for the hottest story of the year, as well as the $5 million reward!
I was rather excited to watch this movie considering its star studded cast. Richard Gere is quickly growing old enough to be Hollywood “O.G.” status, Terrence Howard is always solid and can be really awesome at times (like his work in Crash for example), and Jesse Eisenberg keeps impressing me in the handful of roles hes done so far in his young career. And for all in tense and purposes, they all do a really good job in this one. Gere is the kind of crazy, yet genuine, “hard-line” reporter that will risk life and limb for the scoop. Howard is a skillful camera operator that plays the solid personality that keeps sanity and humility in the operation. And Eisenberg does an awesome job portraying a young, privileged upstart that feels he has something to prove to himself and his peers. But despite the good acting, I feel like the script wasn’t sure what type of film it wanted to do. I mean to say that there is a very serious tone that is set early in the film, especially after the blow up that Hunt has on national TV. Yet at times, the script seems overly witty and comical which often clashes with the overall “no nonsense” feel of the movie as a whole. To be Captain Hindsight for a second, I think it would have worked out better if Eisenberg was set as the lone comic relief, but the script almost forces all of the main players to have “laugh out loud” moments. This is not to say that all of the lines are done in this manor, but there are a few too many for the dialogue to be considered really good in this movie.
On the presentation side, things are okay in this department. The Blu-Ray picture quality is standard. Which means it’s good and definitely high definition, but it won’t “blow you away” like the visuals in Speed Racer or Star Trek. The cinematography works, but doesn’t add any extra panache to the film. And since this is somewhat of a war film, you’d like for there to be more of an emphasis on a steadily involved mise-en-scene. But what is very, very good is the sound design. Every sound: from tires on asphalt, to explosions, to the musical score all work in harmony and set a nice beat, so to speak. There is a particular scene late in the movie where the three of them are in a forest and my surround system just came to life and really put me into the hunt itself. Aside from the major, huge “blockbusters” that should have awesome DTS/Dolby Digital tracks, this is the best Blu-Ray surround mix I’ve ever heard. I applaud the sound team on this one and hope they get more work in the future.
The Special Features are pretty entertaining and insightful. It has your basics: commentary with writer/director Richard Shepard, deleted scenes, and theatrical trailer. But the other three are what you really want from the extras. The first is “Making The Hunting Party” which tells the back story about the conflict and how Shepard drew inspiration from the real life events as well as comments by Gere, Howard, and Eisenberg. “The Real Hunting Party” has Shepard interviewing two of the real journalists John Falk and Scott Anderson about the “adventure” they had while in Bosnia. The last one is the actual Esquire article entitled “What I did on my Summer Vacation” written by Scott Anderson.
