Hunting Party (2007)

"...a dark suspense comedy...  Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
"A terrific film done with panache, suspense, action, and humor.  Liz Smith, New York Post
"...an original, gonzo treat...  Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"Faast-paced, smart and exciting.  Pete Hammond, Maxim
"Like many of the best movies about war and its lingering echo, The Hunting Party is full of dark humor.  Robert Wilonsky, The Village Voice

Editor's Note On the fifth anniversary of the end of the civil war in Bosnia, former hot-shot reporter Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) mysteriously shows up, five years after imploding on live television and disappearing into a self-imposed exile. Reunited with his cameraman, Duck (Terrence Howard), who has been promoted to a cushy studio gig working with anchorman Franklin Harris (James Brolin), Simon convinces Duck to go on a dangerous journey to get an interview with the wanted war criminal known as the Fox (Ljubomir Kerekes), based on the real-life Radovan Karadicz. They are joined by Ben (Jesse Eisenberg), the Harvard-educated nephew of a network executive who is in search of adventure and a good story. Together the three drive deep into Serb territory, facing more intrigue and danger than they ever could have imagined. Writer-director Richard Shepard (THE MATADOR) loosely based THE HUNTING PARTY on an article Scott Anderson wrote for Esquire magazine entitled "What I Did on My Summer Vacation," about five reporters who actually did go after Karadicz, and tried to capture him. Shepard infuses the film with a sly black humor and fills the story with a crazy cast of oddball characters, paying homage to Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN, which was set in postwar Vienna. The three leads are excellent, especially Gere, who plays Hunt with a knowing grin that often hides what he's really up to. Shot on location in and around Sarajevo, lending the film an eerie reality, THE HUNTING PARTY--which claims at the beginning that "only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true"--is a fun, fascinating political thriller.

	Diane Kruger
	Dylan Baker
	James Brolin
	Joy Bryant
	Kristina Krepela
	Mark Ivanir
	Richard Gere
	Terrence Howard
	Bill Block - Executive Producer
	Carole Kravetz - Editor
	David Tattersall - Cinematographer
	Jan Roelfs - Production Designer
	Mario Ivezic - Art Director
	Paul Hanson - Producer
	Richard Shepard - Director
	Richard Shepard - Screenplay
	Rolfe Kent - Original Music By
	Scott K. Anderson - Based On Article By

Entertainment Weekly
"What makes THE HUNTING PARTY an original, gonzo treat is the way that Shepard plants the movie's tone somewhere between hair-trigger investigative danger and the from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire glee of a Hope/Crosby picture." -- Grade: B 09/14/2007 p.130

USA Today
3 stars out of 4 -- "[T]he story moves along with a finely calibrated intensity...A movie worth chasing down." 09/21/2007 p.12D

Ultimate DVD
3 stars out of 5 -- "With shades of THREE KINGS, Shepard's anarchic film clips along at an enjoyable pace..." 04/01/2008 p.93

Reel.com 9 of 10
In Richard Shepard's last film, the black comedy The Matador, a depressive middle-aged hit man no longer quite up to the job and a failing businessman meet and form an offbeat friendship as they helped one another through their respective midlife crises. Richard Gere stars in Shepard's new pitch-black comedy-drama, The Hunting Party, as a middle-aged war correspondent who flamed out of the job seeks redemption with the help of a pair of younger colleagues. If these two movies are any indication, Shepard is on the fast track to becoming the bard of male midlife angst. The Matador was pure delight, but The Hunting Party is more substantial as it touches on recent world history and through the fun-house mirror of this journalistic trio's adventures asks some pertinent questions of how events have played out...Dylan Baker shows up toward the end of the movie in a priceless cameo as a nameless CIA operative, making explicit what has been mostly implied, that certainly mass-murdering thugs get away with it because it is in some nations' interest that they not get caught. The revelation does not detract from The Hunting Party's delightfully breezy tone, but it is unsettling and as the movie fades to black, it leaves one with something to think about. - Pam Grady

Variety 7 of 10
Proceeding with the same tone of cynical world-weariness that proved a mixed blessing in his debut feature, "The Matador," writer-director Richard Shepard fictionalizes a real-life tale of journos recklessly tracking down a Bosnian war criminal in "The Hunting Party." Alternately glib, superficial and amusing, pic vainly attempts to absorb some degree of Serbian irony into a story that's unavoidably lessened by its privileged American vantage point. The war-can-be-fun mood may not go over well in the current climate, serving up major challenges for MGM (handling Stateside release) and QED Intl. Shepard's strategy for fictionalizing Scott K. Anderson's Esquire mag piece contrasts in telling ways with Michael Winterbottom's "Welcome to Sarajevo," still the best account of Western correspondents in the war-torn Balkans...Gere has loads of fun with Simon, letting loose with some of the best acting of his career as a guy all too aware of his own mortality and the high-stakes gamble he's throwing himself into. Howard is considerably upstaged, and after his amusing intro, his Duck never quite passes the credibility test. Eisenberg is starting to patent a personal form of innocent deadpan that gives him a distinctive place in the busy pic. Diane Kruger, Ivanir, Brolin and Kerekes leave strong supporting impressions. - Robert Koehler