I love Steve McQueen. I think that he's just about my favourite actor ever. McQueen understood the truth of the saying 'less is more' than anyone I've ever seen. And so I've avoided seeing this for years. Knowing that he made it whilst becoming ill, I didn't want to see him diminished.
McQueen himself knew that he was aging fast and needed a new direction, his coveted project 'An Enemy of the People' shows that much (another film I've yet to see, but one that I'm intrigued to) but this film shows the way his career would've gone and it isn't pretty.
'The Hunter' is a poor movie. As with many films based on someone's life story it is episodic and a little too much care is paid to not hurting anyone's feelings. The only real villain is a 2-D psychopath who gets as little screen time as is logistically possible. And so we end up with what seems like a few episodes of 'The Fall Guy' strung together to justify some pretty decent stunt work. It ends in about the most cloying way imaginable. The soundtrack is laughable. It looks like a TV movie- I've never heard of the director, perhaps that's what his day job is. In fact, you could run the film for an hour opening with Eli Wallach and the parents of the kid Bernardo and the only thing you would miss is seeing McQueen fight one of the biggest men you've ever seen and get distracted by a train set (kids toys are a constant presence in the film, they were McQueen's own- as were a couple of the cars). The film is most notable for a great chase with McQueen in a combine harvester chasing a Trans Am through a cornfield and an even better foot chase ending with McQueen hanging off a the side of a subway train.
Aside from those two set-pieces, the production values are pretty poor and no-one seems to care at all how the movie turns out, but that kind of saves it too. McQueen is having such a good time sending himself up (his character 'Papa' Thorson is a terrible driver who freely admits that he's "getting too old for this shit") that the charm of his performance saves the movie. He is out of shape and struggles during the action scenes but doesn't get a corset on like William Shatner, he just shows the character as he would have been.
As I said earlier, this shows the way McQueen's career would have gone. He couldn't get serious dramatic work and would've ended up parodying himself. To do this once shows self-awareness and a lack of bullshit- to keep doing it is to become Sylvester Stallone.
Anyway, a poor movie saved by some decent stunts, solid work from Eli Wallach and LeVar Burton and a charming performance by my all-time favourite actor. 5/10
