The Hunter's Prayer

It is his film. Scene by scene. Cliche by cliche. An action film like many others, mixing the vulnerable girl, hunted by bad guy for a sin of her father, a lonely sentimental killer protecting her, fights, violence, drugs. The worse part is the dialogue. The best - the effort to be more than a simplistic action-thriller, with not so bad end. A film about honor and fatherhood who escapes to the temptation to be a simple sketch but proposing few scenes of old fashion . With a decent result.

Crime/action movie. A paid killer sees that his next target is a young girl, the daughter of a target of his boss. He cannot kill her and eventually undertakes to flee and protect her, making them both targets. Sam Worthington, a very good actor, perfectly attributes the inner strife of a paid murderer and protector like a father, being himself the father of a daughter. The film has enough suspense up to a point where it gradually drops pace unfortunately and has an expected end. It could have become of the top films in the genre with a little more work. However it is quite good and is recommended.

We've seen similar themes many times over in movies through the years. Here Sam Worthington portrays Lucas, a hired assassin and drug addict who can't bring himself to kill his next assignment, who's the 16-year-old Ella, played by Odeya Rush. Of course, this makes the man who hired Lucas (Allen Leech) very unhappy and so Lucas and Ella must try and escape through Europe from those killers who want to eliminate them.

There's plenty of wooden dialogue and formulaic plot elements here. However on the positive side I was interested enough in the film to want to see how it would all turn out, and it does present its viewers with quite the poignant ending.

Overall, nothing really new here for this genre, but the pacing kept me engaged throughout.

'THE HUNTER'S PRAYER': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

The new action thriller starring Sam Worthington as a hit-man who ends up helping the young woman that he was supposed to kill. It was directed by Jonathan Mostow (who's also helmed such other hit action flicks as 'U571', 'BREAKDOWN', 'TERMINATOR 3' and 'SURROGATES'), and it was written by Paul Leyden and Oren Moverman (the duo also co-wrote 'SURROGATES', 'TERMINATOR 3' and 'TERMINATOR SALVATION', also starring Worthington). The script is based on the 2004 novel 'For the Dogs', by Kevin Wignall. It costars Odeya Rush, Allen Leech and Amy Landecker. The film has received mixed (to negative) reviews from critics, and it was also only released on VOD and in limited indie theaters at the Box Office. I found it to be pretty entertaining.

Lucas (Worthington) is a loner assassin with a serious drug addiction problem. He's hired to kill a young woman, named Ella (Rush), but when he needs to pull the trigger, he can't do it. Instead Lucas ends up reluctantly helping the girl, by defending her from the very same people that hired him to kill her. By doing so, he also makes himself a target of his former employers. When Ella realizes her parents were killed by Lucas's former employer, Richard Addison (Leech), she attempts to hire Lucas to kill Addison for revenge.

I'd say the film is similar in quality to Mostow's other movies, I really like 'TERMINATOR 3' though. It's a fun action film for the most part, nothing too memorable (or special), but it is entertaining. I think Worthington makes an awesome action hero too, and I'd really like to see him make more movies like this. I can't overly recommend it, but it is a decent action flick.

Watch an episode of our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://youtu.be/KR0HDeT91m0

The Hunter's Prayer is just a 90min average action thriller flick that you probably didn't know being played at theater then in a cold boring day you decide to check it out on Netflix and not remember a damn thing the next day.It nice to look at and it not taken itself too seriously(Thank god for that)other than that the plot is genetic,the characters is boring with no redemption quality due to the lead female actor Odeya Rush with her wooden acting that so painful to watch but at least Sam Worthington is very convincing with the junkie hit man role and deliver some good action scene but despite being a R rated movie most of the action scene is very PG-13ish.