The Hunter

"The Hunter" is no masterpiece, certainly, and not on a par with Steve McQueen's classics from the 1960's. But it did showcase a looser, more easy going McQueen and showed a direction he might have gone further in during the 1980's had he lived. Certainly its no worse than a lot of the films Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds were churning out in this time period. I enjoyed the movie, its certainly watchable, but it is hampered by what seems like a made-for-TV look and budget at times (Steve McQueen couldn't get a bigger budget??). The musical score sucks in the way many 70's and 80's films did, and there's one howlingly ludicrous classroom scene featuring Kathryn Harrold as McQueen's girlfriend. But its all about McQueen in his final performance really. Fortunately he looks pretty good in this film, at least better than he did in "Tom Horn" and "An Enemy of the People" and he also looks like he was having a pretty good time. It was also nice to see him in his final film go full-circle playing a modern equivalent to his break-through role as a bounty hunter in "Wanted:Dead or Alive", which was where I first became a fan of McQueen's. He was a true movie star and a man's man and I still miss him.