Killing Season

I was expecting to despise this movie. I only watched it because I was in the mood to see a bad De Niro movie, so the one where he's opposite Travolta playing a Serbian seemed to fit the criteria perfectly. But I was actually on board for the first 15 or so minutes of Killing Season. De Niro's character is off in a cabin isolated from his family and still recovering from the effects the Bosnian war had on him however many years ago, and Travolta's character is out for vengeance because he was left for dead in the same war on the opposing side. It's a simple enough premise. And there's one interesting scene where De Niro and Travolta are drinking and sharing war stories where you actually feel some tension but mutual respect building between them. Kind of like Pacino and De Niro in Heat (a blasphemous comparison but it's the first thing that came to mind). Anyway, I wanted more of that.

But as soon as that's over, the movie turns into a cat-and-mouse game between the two of them that consists of one of them getting captured and tortured, then they somehow escape and the chase continues until the other guy gets captured and tortured, then they somehow escape and the cycle continues. It's just dumb and predictable. And let's talk about the accents for a minute. Travolta doesn't even have a bad accent. Mind you I don't know how authentic of a Serbian accent it is, but the accent itself is convincing enough. The problem is that he uses the same intonation for everything he says. At one point he's literally shot in the f*cking face and the next minute he's talking in exactly the same tone as before. And De Niro does this southern accent that drifts in and out, and you can tell he's just there for a paycheck because he's not even trying to pull it off convincingly. Hell it was more believable in Machete. And the special effects, holy god they're awful. They'll randomly cut to a close up of a wound and it just looks terrible. It's gratuitous, and I don't mind gratuity all that much but when you can clearly tell something is CGI, there's no excuse for that to make it in the final cut. It's unnecessary, it looks like crap, get it out of there.

So yeah, I ended up disliking the movie but not for the reasons I was expecting. Travolta's accent wasn't the worst part of the movie like I thought it'd be. The story was quite interesting but it gets resolved in the most half-assed way, like there's absolutely no pathos when there so easily could have been seeing as how it's about two opposing war vets encountering each other after all this time. I mean, it's not a terrible movie. It really isn't. De Niro has had much worse, so has Travolta. But there are glimpses of potential all over this movie that get squandered in the dumbest possible ways, and that itself makes Killing Season a frustrating watch.

Just a short comment for all the people complaining about the history facts.

There wasn't a Serbian Army? true that.. but there where: Arkanovi Tigrovi (Srpska dobrovoljacka garda), Knindze, Crvene beretke, Skorpioni, Seseljevi dobrovoljci, Dusan silni, Beli orlovi (Seseljevci, Osvetnici, Cetnici), Srpski sokolovi, Siltovi and many many more.. and they where not Japanese or chineese or Canadian people. It is to hard to understand to foreign ppl and learn all of them.. so they can say just "serbian army", even officially it wasn't their name.

Please look at the big picture and do not stick to these 2 words.

Travolta's Serbian slang is not perfect but he is acting good. I am sure Serbian actors don't speak perfect English to.

If is a movie. Not the greatest one but still a movie and no one said it is based on a true story.

First of all this review focuses on the cinematography and acting of this movie and not its historical accuracy, I am not a judge of that. All I'm going to say is that history has many sides.

Killing Season brings to the big screen the first collaboration of two great actors, Robert De Niro and John Travolta. Both of the actors bring mediocre performances and are basically the main reason that this movie is quite appealing. Travolta's Serbian accent, I thought, was decent enough and quite believable. De Niro's performance was a bit rushed, like he did this movie as a favour for someone, or simply for money.

Although overly cheesy and quite violent this film is perfect for thrill seekers who like to see good actors play roles that do not suit them at all. The plot is simple and does not complicate things although I do believe that the flashback scenes were useless to the portrayal of the story. The only thing need said about the plot is that it is a simple "revenge seeking" story.

To summarize, this movie is an adventurous story with beautiful scenery and intense action scenes that appeals for both action and thrill seeking audiences but also to more critically thinking audiences that focus on exaggerated acting performances. Overall I give this movie a well deserved 6/10.

So now i am sorry that i did not read the reviews first. The movie is a disappointment. I did not liked Travolta accent and look, this is not like an Serbian soldiers look like, not at all, you could tell it from 5 blocks away that this guy is American, anyway, if you wanna break your TV or laptop or you wanna beat the guy in the movie theater (you know, the guy at the ticketing) you are my guest to watch this movie.

And what can i say about the story... it is a little bit cheap.

The final act, yeah, it was like: "this is a beginning of a beautiful friendship"

Yeah, nice pictures in the nature, but hey, they sold me a movie not a postcard!

This movie has a decent premise but not the best execution. War veterans with unfinished business fighting out a final battle in the woods long after their war is over. But unfortunately, the film plays itself out with these two guys going back and forth at each other after the first couple of exchanges. I'd say it goes off the rails towards the end of the second act and it just gets hard to believe their fight could be drawing out this long as they keep turning the tables on each other.

The climax ties the ridiculous action together a little bit with a sort of drawn out explanation of how they keep fighting with each other because they like it in their own way. It hints at the idea that there could have been a good movie in there as it wraps everything you just watched and couldn't really believe in a little fancy bow.

Unfortunately the plot, which funny enough is quite simple and straight forward, is just too absurd to believe.

The interesting moments saved this from being a terrible movie. But the action, the plot and the characters held it back from being a particularly good one. DeNiro and Travolta give passing grade mail in performances that work well enough for the story they were tasked with. But the dialogue was a little subpar.

Better options out there, but if you're bored on a Saturday night, it's not the worst thing you could watch.