ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Michael_Elliott Death Hunt (1981) *** 1/2 (out of 4)Based on a true story (fictionalized heavily here) of mountain man Albert Johnson (Charles Bronson) who kills a man in self defense but the cowards who attacked him claim that he started it. A mountain law man named Millen (Lee Marvin) asks Albert to come back to town but he refuses. What follows is a hectic chase through the mountains where Albert tries to reach safety while the posse tries to kill him.DEATH HUNT is without question the best movie that Bronson did during a decade where he was doing forgettable films like THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, crazy exploitation like DEATH WISH 3 or downright graphic movies like KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS. Those films that action legend did with Cannon certainly have fans, including myself, but they can't tough that macho-nature of DEATH HUNT. You've got legends like Bronson and Marvin doing battle in the wilderness with non-stop action and extremely graphic violence. What's not the love?There's no doubt that it's Bronson and Marvin that makes this film so memorable. There's a terrific sequence where the characters make a stop to take a breath and they look at each other through a pair of binoculars. Just the smile on both actors face will make any fan smile as well. There aren't many tougher people in the history of cinema and both Bronson and Marvin know this and you can tell they liked playing their toughness off of one another. They each want to up the other and this cat-and-mouse challenge between them really shows up and pays off on the screen with their characters.It certainly doesn't hurt that you've got a terrific supporting cast with many familiar character actors. Andrew Stevens, who would co- star with Bronson in 10 TO MIDNIGHT, is very good as the "new" guy in the force. Carl Weathers always plays it tough and cool. Ed Lauter plays one of the better villains of the decade. A real low- life that you can't wait to see him get him due. Angie Dickinson has a small and rather useless role but it's still nice to see her.The film is also technically well-made with Peter Best doing a nice job directing it. The cinematography is wonderful and the score is quite rousing and keeps you pumped up at the action. As I said, some of the violence is downright brutal and bloody but it adds to the fun. DEATH HUNT really benefits from the setting and getting to see two legendary tough guys doing what they do best. I've seen this movie countless times over the years and it never gets old.

Scott LeBrun Decent if unexceptional chase / survival thriller benefits from a solid cast, interesting characters, breathtaking scenery, and a compelling enough story, based on (or maybe the operative words should be "inspired by") history. The true story is touted as one of the most intense manhunts ever, and I am sure it would make for fascinating reading.Two legendary cinema tough guys play pursuer and the pursued; Charles Bronson is Albert Johnson, a solitary man forced to kill in self-defense. Lee Marvin is Edgar Millen, the Royal Canadian Mountie who is obliged to track him down, but who respects him far too much to want to see him bagged by a greed-motivated bounty hunter or an overly ambitious pilot.Ultimately, the movie doesn't deliver too much on the action front; the action scenes are certainly competent but there aren't too many of them, and we really don't get a sense of the characters having to endure any real hardships, despite the potentially riveting man vs. nature element of the story.Still, "Death Hunt" does manage to entertain well enough even if it's not terribly memorable in the end. Its period recreation is effective (the story takes place at the tail end of 1931 in Canada's Yukon Territory) and there are some great scenes and images. It's just too cool to see Bronson - in one of his better performances - emerge from the rubble of his destroyed cabin with both guns a-blazing. The music by Jerrold Immel and cinematography by James Devis are noteworthy, as well as a prominent male milieu, headed by greats Bronson and Marvin; Andrew Stevens is baby faced, by-the-book young Mountie Alvin, Carl Weathers the easygoing "Sundog", veteran screen heavy Ed Lauter the troublemaker Hasel, and an under utilized Angie Dickinson in an obligatory (and brief) love interest role. Lots of great character faces here, too: Henry Beckman, William Sanderson, Jon Cedar, Len Lesser, Richard Davalos, Maury Chaykin, August Schellenberg, Sean McCann, and Tantoo Cardinal. Chaykin and Schellenberg add silly comedy relief as two constantly bickering thugs.Overall, this is good stuff if not as great as it could and should have been. At least it's a good example of a thriller with a refreshingly old fashioned, straightforward appeal and which doesn't over saturate itself with special effects. It even works in a comment on the nature of tradition vs. progress, which in this story is represented by radios and aviation. All in all, it may give in to predictability rather than nuance, and not be too faithful to the true story, but it provides acceptable entertainment.Seven out of 10.

MARIO GAUCI This is one of Charles Bronson's more popular vehicles (though I've missed it more than I care to remember in the past!) – as much for his pairing with Lee Marvin as for the tough, snow-bound action of the plot.The film, in fact, is based on true events depicting a bloody manhunt which has gone down in history; ironically, its source seems to have been a trivial argument about possession of a wounded dog! While the location photography is pretty spectacular, the narrative tightly-paced and the action sequences undeniably well-handled (Peter Hunt being a veteran of James Bond movies as both editor and director), it's unfortunate that characterization – the posse grows in number once a bounty is offered for the capture of trapper Bronson – is mostly relegated to unpleasant stock types.Even if both stars (who only get to share one scene) were clearly ageing by this time, they bring conviction to their respective roles: Bronson demonstrates his characteristic quiet fortitude as the hunted man, while Marvin is the experienced and tenacious lawman on his trail (but whose cynicism gives way towards the end to reveal an essential humanism underneath). Angie Dickinson briefly supplies the redundant love interest to Marvin's character; this was the last of their three pairings – the other titles being the far superior THE KILLERS (1964) and POINT BLANK (1967).

bassetbudz according to one of the comments made on this movie, the pilot of the Bristol F2A aircraft was a WW1 pilot named 'Wop" May. "Wop" was the nickname of Wilfred May who also had another larger claim to fame. He is the Canadian pilot that Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron was chasing on April 21, 1918 when he was killed either by a shot fired from the ground as facts suggest, or from the air by May's squadron mate Captain Roy Brown. It was one of May's first missions and as he was still an inexperienced pilot, he had been ordered by Brown to stay out of combat if at all possible, but during a combat with Richtofen's squadron, a fokker triplane flew by May and he couldn't resist going after it. he failed to shoot it down and because his guns had jammed, he broke from the combat and headed home. Von Richtofen saw him and attacked, and it was in the following battle that he lost his life. May went on to become a successful pilot and ace in his own right, and following the war had a career as a bush pilot.