Hunting Season

Mel Gibson returns with a fatherly role, with healthy principles such as family care and faith, in a lost, corrupt and violent world.

Sofia Hublitz is like a ray of sunshine and is very believable in the role.

Miss Stallone does okay.

Mel has his original "hands" that made him famous.

A film worth seeing.

"Hunting Season" is a competently made thriller that builds tension through atmosphere and restraint, even if it never quite rises above genre familiarity. It's a solid watch, but one that plays things a little too safely to leave a lasting impression.

The direction favors subtlety over spectacle, allowing unease to develop gradually. This approach works in places, creating moments of genuine tension, but it also means the film can feel muted at times, lacking the punch needed to fully engage. Visually, it's appropriate and consistent, though rarely striking.

The performances are believable and grounded, helping sell the realism of the situation. However, the characters themselves aren't especially memorable, and the story follows well-worn paths without adding much of its own identity. What could have been sharper or more daring settles instead for competence.

In the end, "Hunting Season" isn't bad - just limited. It delivers a restrained, watchable thriller experience, but one that remains firmly in the realm of "okay" rather than truly compelling.

Listen, this movie has problems, and is by no means perfect. The beginning is especially problematic, as the character wasn't introduced nor was it well acted. At a few minutes in, I thought I was watching an autistic person annoy someone, but apparently it was supposed to be a drug lord.

Luckily I stuck with it, because it does get a lot better. Gibson and his daughter are sweet, and the rest of the acting is serviceable. The story doesn't make a ton of sense as presented, yet still makes for an extremely watchable movie.

8.0 stars.

I lost count how many hundreds of movies I've seen similar to 'Hunting Season'. Just about every movie star has been in one and I think Mel Gibson has probably been in a half-dozen like this.

Trying to describe the genre, it's basically a story about a father protecting a woman and his innocent daughter from bad people. There are a hundred ways to tell this particular type of story, whether it's on a grand scale like 'John Wick', or literally any movie with a big shot action hero, such as 'Death Wish' or a very small scale like 'Hunting Season' -- they tell mostly the same story. I know I've seen so many others that are almost identical to it, but none of the names come to mind.

But this film is simply about an aged man (Gibson) who is mostly a hermit living in a cabin in the woods with his daughter. They stumble onto a wounded woman down by the river and the rest of the narrative is easy to figure. It's about all hell breaking loose when gangsters find out the woman is still alive, because she knows too much.

Sound like a familiar plot? It certainly is and that's the rest of the story. As you can guess, the old man is a warrior, ex-military type, and his daughter can handle a gun too. And so now they must defend themselves against a butt-load of two-bit gangsters who basically run a cartel in "Jerkwater USA", as Colonel Trautman would say.

This movie is a semi-slow burner and not in any way a big production, but it will keep you on the edge of your seat. It felt a bit like 'Road House' too, (The Swayze version), but I'm not exactly sure why. I think the daughter resembles the blond in 'Road House', I don't know.

For these usual geezer teaser movies there's usually a bait and switch. Mel would be on the cover but in reality just in the movie for 10 minutes. Not here actually. He is the lead. It's primarily his film and bless him he is trying but there's no budget to speak of and it shows. The movie meanders around and takes a long while to get to its eventual conclusion. I wouldn't be surprised if Mel really helped out on keeping the action quick and simple to cover for the fact they just had no money. Digital squibs and muzzle flashes galore kill any sort of bloodlust enjoyment in the finale and it's a routine a to b to c plot.

That would be fine if they could have delivered on some kind of satisfactory conclusion or character path. I mean let's be real it's 2025, I'm watching cause it's Mel Gibson. Just give Mel a decent reason for ripping throats and then set him free, you'll have all of our money. It's the John Wick principal of these types of movies. Just be the crowd pleaser. But instead it wanted to be a slow burn type mid 90s hometown thriller. But nothing in the script reaches above mediocrity so instead you have a painfully average vendiagram of the two and it all results in nothing satisfying.

I'll still give it props for being mostly competent and not a bait and switch.

Late at night and on streaming? It's fine. Cheap rental? Meh

Purchase? No.