‘The Hunted’ a brutal, fun thriller

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“The Hunted”

As “The Hunted” opens, bombs explode, bullets fly through the air and bloodied bodies fall to the ground in a war-torn Kosovo.

It’s easy to fall into a trap and think this is going to be another war movie with a lesson that war is bad.

There is a war in this movie, but it is fought between teacher and student, where instinct is the cause of bloodshed.

Benicio Del Toro plays the student, Aaron Hallarm, a silver-star recipient for his work in a vicious assault in the film’s opening sequence that haunts him through the film.

Hallarm is a trained killer who has lost the frosting on his Frosted Flakes.

He hacks a few hunters to death with a small knife, cutting off their arms and legs.

Once word of these murders reaches the FBI, L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones) is brought in to investigate because he trained Hallarm to become the kind of killer he is; even though Bonham has never killed another person.

Bonham is a hunter of hunters, who once made his living training the Army’s best to be shadow killers. As he points out, Hallarm has killed many that “didn’t even know he was in the room.”

“The Hunted” is a warped cat-and-mouse game with tons of blood, knife fights and dizzying helicopter tracking shots. Though this is a tired plotline, director William Friedkin (”Rules of Engagement”) and writers David and Peter Griffiths don’t bog the movie down with a pointless script. The only lines spoken are those where dialogue is needed. The rest of the time, the viewers must rely on instinct to follow along.

As for the acting, just look at the gold between the two leads. Both Jones and Del Toro have Oscars, and even though they won’t conjure up anymore awards with their efforts here, it’s hard not to like either of them.

Del Toro is a menacing delight, who is equal parts frightening as he is ferocious. Though it is not his best acting, who cares? When he slices and dices, he gets your attention.

And Jones is always a welcome presence on screen. He takes what could have been a boring tracker and turns his character into a shark who has just tasted blood and is thirsty for more.

That said, “The Hunted” bleeds life into a tired genre by not insulting the audience with petty dialogue and plot games. Though a plotline where Del Toro is shown as a father figure when he’s not poking holes in other people seems trivial, it is such a small part of the movie that it passes before the audience realizes it was there.

And that’s where the movie flows. It sticks to its guns — or knives — and doesn’t detour far from where it wants to take the audience. That place is a bloody and brutal movie that is as enjoyable as it is hard to watch. “The Hunted” is a slice of menacing fun.