The Hunting Party (2007)

Directed by: Richard Shepard | 96 minutes | drama, thriller, comedy, adventure | Actors: Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, James Brolin, Jesse Eisenberg, Lejla Hadzimuratovic, Gordana Vukres, Sanela Seferagic, Damir Sanban, Aleksandra Grdic, Scott Anderson, Harald Doornbos, Philippe Deprez, Erich Rathfelder, Zan Marolt, Ljubomir Kerekes

‘The Hunting Party’ is based on the story Scott Anderson wrote for Esquire Magazine in October 2000 after his return from Bosnia. ‘What I Did On My Summer Vacation’ is the title of the story of five journalists who return to Sarajevo five years after the end of the war and decide to track down and capture the war criminal Radovan Karadicz after a night of reminiscing. With the help of a defecting Serb, who believed they are a CIA special unit, they set off until the real CIA intervenes.

The film begins with the statement “Only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true”. The first part is very much like a black comedy, with absurd situations in the war zone and caricatural characters that make you wonder if it all really happened. Attention has been aroused. Both the Hollywood cast and the local actors act almost over the top, but it fits well into the black comedy picture.

However, during the course of the film, the comedy turns more into a drama. Once down-and-out journalist Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) tells his former cameraman Duck (Terrence Howard) the real reason for going after war criminal Boghanovic (Ljubomir Kerekes), the film is a drama in the making. Not a humorous critical story, but a highly romanticized example of Hollywood film making.

When director Richard Shepard realizes that the story threatens to derail, he tries to bring back the humor of the first part with a handful of scenes. However, the damage has already been done. He has caused enough confusion in the viewer, who wonders what the moral of the story is. Initially, there is a critical look at the UN, the European Union and all other organizations that go after war criminals. But that is thrown overboard in the second part to return too late in the credits.

The story written by Scott Anderson has a lot of potential, but was apparently too ambitious for Richard Shepard to translate it into a good script. The film now falls somewhere between a political film and a standard Hollywood production, with the result that it scores an unsatisfactory score on both counts.