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Created Apr 19, 2011 09:34PM PST • Edited Apr 19, 2011 09:34PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Death-defying TV journalists star in their own movie – or at least their moviestar alter egos do – in The Hunting Party. Set in the badlands of Serbia during and after the Bosnian War, the movie has fresh resonance now that NATO is currently seeking to dislodge another war criminal, this time from Libya.

   The Hunting Party’s real story began when three print journalists returned to Bosnia for a vacation and ended up trying to capture an infamous war criminal. Publishing the results in Esquire as What I Did on My Summer Vacation, their tale got transmogrified into a Hollywood epic about a TV journalist, played by none other than Richard Gere.

   Sounds like the setup to a Hollywood joke: So five print journalists walk into a Sarajevo bar and Richard Gere’s TV war correspondent walks out…

   The resulting movie is enjoyable and compelling, albeit played too close to farce. Pity, because even though the humor helps make the case that war criminals really can be found, it often falls flat.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   TV war correspondents are perhaps the most self-important people on Earth: above the fray, yet in it at the same time; exiled to a remote, dangerous land, yet beamed into living rooms back home. No wonder the producers picked Richard Gere to play the role, even if he is too smooth and smug for my taste.

   Terrence Howard pleasantly surprises as the second banana and primary narrator.

   Jesse Eisenberg plays a nebbish like the second coming of Dustin Hoffman.

   Solid bit players:

   • James Brolin as a Tom Brokaw-like anchorman.
   • Diane Kruger as a Serbian operator.
   • Dylan Baker as a CIA agent.
   • Joy Bryant as a luscious girlfriend.

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    It would have played better if the droll macho badinage was turned down.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Barely OK 2.0

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.8

    Richard Gere’s sexy war correspondent engages in all sorts of risky behavior, self-medicating and attracting hotties who are prone to flashing their perfect breasts. What a guy.

    More seriously, the movie deserves credit for respectfully showing grisly war crimes, the exposure of which is a public good.

17. Sex Titillating 2.3

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.6

21. Reality

    Glib 1.4

    The UN gets pilloried for not chasing down an indicted war criminal. NATO too is shown to shirk its Responsibility to Protect during and after a civilian protection war. Interesting, since NATO is once again in such a war, 800 miles south of Serbia in Libya.

    Also, the movie serves as a reminder that the US and NATO intervened in the Bosnian War largely to protect Muslims. You’d think that would count for something in the larger Islamic world.

    Finally, the movie has great fun with the declining industry of TV journalism. It ain’t what it once was.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.5

    The movie’s loosely based on an Esquire article about several journalists trying to catch war criminal Radovan Karadžić. Vestiges of this are shown in between the moviestar action scenes and shots of cheesecake.

23. Biological Glib 1.4

24. Physical Glib 1.4