When The Hunted, directed by William Friedkin, begins, two hunters are killed and savagely butchered in the Oregon wilderness while hunting elk. The FBI summons L.T. Bonham (played by Tommy Lee Jones) from his hideaway retreat in the British Columbia wilderness to track the murderer. LT quickly concludes that the murder suspect is Aaron Hallam (played by Benicio Del Toro), whom he trained as a killer for action in Kosovo. Hallam apparently has a case of posttraumatic stress syndrome from his experience with Kosovo’s ethnic cleansing. Hallam also lives in the wilderness, to wit, the Cascade Mountains. His execution of the two hunters is because he believes that humans are savagely destroying the wildlife and must be stopped. However, the FBI wants to apprehend the killer, and LT indeed tracks Hallam, who surrenders to the authorities. However, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) assumes jurisdiction; after he was officially reported as “missing in action,” they have used him for political assassinations, so any publicity about his identity supposedly would compromise covert operations. Transferred to a DOD van, Hallam pulls off an escape, leaving his captors dead. After he briefly visits the home of his wife and child, where LT and the FBI find him, Hallam then flees through downtown Portland, down the Columbia River, and ultimately to a predictable showdown with LT in the wilderness. The film’s message is that animals should be allowed to live in the wilderness rather than being “the hunted.” The film’s cinematography of Oregon is breathtaking. The fight scenes, in which LT and Hallam use only knives, are rather amateurish, as even the simplest of kungfu moves would have been possible, very effective, and much better choreographed. Who would imagine that fifty-six-year-old Tommy Lee Jones would be able to hold his own against agile thirty-six-year-old Benicio Del Toro? MH