L'ombra dell'assassino

When a pair of park rangers discover a host of dead bears they call in reinforcements to track down those responsible. Sadly they get more than they bargained for, one single man who is far more dangerous than they imagined.

Essentially at its core Wounded is a revenge thriller starring Madchen Amick and a host of faces you'll recognise but struggle to put a name to. Among them is Jim "Bobby from Supernatural" Beaver who doesn't get all too much camera time.

I like the story, I think it's fantastic but somewhere along the way the creators dropped the ball and wasted it. It could/should have been so much more but the finished product is a really rather boring little thriller.

It's movies like Wounded that need remaking, a film with a great story but was made by people who didn't know just quite what they had.

Damn shame.

The Good:

Great story

The Bad:

Really boring

Horrible opening

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

At no point did I care about a human more than the bears and the dog

Jim Beaver in something without him calling someone an idjit is just weird

The best reason to watch this sleeper hit is for the duel of wits and wills between Amick's character and Pasdar's. They are more than just characters in this movie. They each represent values. Pasdar re- presents the cold-blooded, calculating ruthlessness of the hunter- competitor; Amick represents the compassion and thoughtfulness that blunts his unreflective violence. You don't have to be an animal rights activist or a feminist to be rooting with all your might for Julie Clayton as she struggles to outwit the trapper Hanaghan.

At the beginning, Julie is admittedly at a disadvantage in her battle with Hanaghan. She has been through the trauma of an attack in the woods and is wounded and weak. She's not only weak physically. She's weak psychologically as well. She has to overcome her own fear and co-dependency. She would nearly have died herself, were it not for a chance encounter with a veteran police officer, played well by Greene. He helps her marshal the courage necessary to outsmart Hanaghan.

To its credit, this movie resists the strong temptation to degenerate into a series of explosions and wanton gunfire once Hanaghan has found

Julie. He must outwit her. He must prevent her from having her say.

But he cannot afford to kill her. He is in her world and out of his own wild element. So it remains a battle of wits all the way through this movie. This is not John Rambo vs. the Establishment in the wilderness!

The movie succeeds on another level as well. Although Julie Clayton becomes more like Hanaghan as she confronts him, she doesn't become exactly like him. That is, she doesn't become the mindless killing machine that he is. She retains her compassion, her humanity and her sanity. She's as strong as he is on her own terms. This is a victory not just for herself but for human dignity, which she represents.

The year 1997 seems to have been a good year for movies, especially sleeper movies like this one. This is a little jewel of a movie! Whoever can should catch it on cable. It's worth three stars!!

A pretty good suspense film especially the beginning. It tends to lose steam, however, when Julie recovers and teams up with a retired trooper to hunt down the killer. All performances are excellent.

The film has beautiful photography of the northwest and animal scenes.

This is a fairly good movie that doesn't try to overwhelm the viewers with non-stop action, chase scenes and loud, hysterical goings on. However, I do feel that the movie would have been better with a little more action and sharper dialog. For much of the time, the dialog was spoken so softly that I had to keep turning up the volume on my TV just to be able to hear what the characters were saying. The finale, where the protagonist and antagonist meet to resolve the issue is just as low key as the rest of the movie.

Forget about Charles Bronson and Deathwish, this is a film with at least a couple of more levels in the sweet, cold sensation of revenge. This film takes the old saying of: `Revenge is a dish best served cool' and turns it into a very good film. In contrast from the `Deathwish' movies which can be very one-dimensional in its revenge-seeking, this one really makes one understand what Mädchen Amick must feel like. This pleasant but scary journey takes us from the innocent peace-loving girl that she was all the way to the killing machine she becomes in a very deep and colorful way. And it doesn't exactly hurt that her sidekick is, the always great, Graham Greene!

If you're looking for an action-packed movie with a lot of cool camera shots (a la N.Y.P.D Blue) this one is not for you. But if you're looking for a high suspense thriller on an emotional level with a lot of great lines and character development this one will be right up your alley!