The Hunted

Directed by J.F. Lawton, The Hunted follows Christopher Lambert’s Paul Racine as he’s targeted by deadly ninjas, led by John Lone’s Kinjo, after witnessing the assassination of Joan Chen’s Kirina. It’s a fairly irresistible setup that’s employed to mostly erratic, underwhelming effect by Lawton, as the filmmaker, working from his own screenplay, delivers a slow-moving and palpably overlong thriller that suffers from far too many prominent lulls to overlook – with this especially true of an uneventful third act that seriously spins its wheels in the buildup to the decidedly anticlimactic final confrontation. The Hunted‘s failure is a shame, really, given that Lawton has admittedly peppered the proceedings with a handful of compelling sequences, including an exciting sequence set at a pachinko parlor, although it remains clear that the picture’s centerpiece and high-water-mark is an extended interlude wherein several ninjas attack (and kill) most of the passengers aboard a commuter train – which all-too-briefly injects the movie with some much-needed electricity and yet is hardly strong enough to justify what’s otherwise (and mostly) a rather tedious experience. (Lambert’s disappointingly bland turn as the one-dimensional hero does little to allay the film’s proliferation of less-than-satisfying elements, to be sure.)

** out of ****