Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

outlaw-74408 I've just finished watching the most recent UK release on DVD. Released on the 20th April 2015. There are no bells and or whistles here. Thankfully from my perspective there are no time wasting extras. No pretentious and or condescending special features in other words, not even a trailer. Other than the feature itself all you have access to is the chapters, but then there is nothing special about doing that is there? This is actually a replacement for a copy that Amazon provided some while back. An import from Belgium or the Netherlands (I forget which off hand), where you could not toggle off the subtitles. You either watched it in French with English subtitles, or in English where one had to put up with the French subtitles. In this case there are no subtitles at all. The inclusion of English subtitles for the hard of hearing might have been a good idea, if nothing else, but even that is not an option here.This particular version has something of a better quality picture than the imported version, which pleases this picture perfectionist no end, though it does show it's age a bit. One is making allowances for when it was made. As to the film itself. It's not the best western ever made, that's for sure; but it's not the worst that I've seen either. The worst western ever is The Gatling Gun, but that's another story for another time. The Hunting Party is not on a par with The Wild Bunch and a few others I could mention but will refrain from naming. Nevertheless I like the simplicity of it. The fact that Gene Hackman is present has resulted in my giving it a plus 1 bonus to my original rating of 6.As a final footnote. Frank Calder and his men are described by some reviewers as a bunch of outlaws. This is not the case. They happen to be a group of gun-hands on their way to join a range war, as is clearly stated in the early stages of the film.

Kieran Green A straight off the 'French Connection pre- Poseidon Adventure Gene Hackman is the wealthy and salacious Rancher Brandt Ruger who departs on a hunting party leaving his beautiful trophy teacher wife a post 'Soldier Blue' Candice Bergan she's abducted by the famous outlaw Frank Calder a superb Oliver Reed who is looking to be taught how to read by Bergan. Reed is joined by LQ Jones who is better known from being one of the blundering pursuers from 'The Wild Bunch' plays a sleazy role here. Mitchell Ryan 'the General from 'Lethal Weapon' is Reed's close friend. pursuing them is Hackman, and the late GD Spradlin' Godfather Part II' 'The Hunting Party' is nothing short of excellent, it is also incredibly violent.

virek213 When you go hunting with Brandt Ruger, you go first-class all the way. But when you steal his "property", you sign your own death warrant.That is something that a notorious outlaw (Oliver Reed) and his gang have to learn in the worst way possible in THE HUNTING PARTY, a 1971 British/American western that, even by 21st century standards, is still incredibly violent. Reed kidnaps a local schoolteacher (Candice Bergen) in the (now faint) hope that he'll be taught how to read. When Bergen warns him about her husband, he tells her "It don't matter whose wife you are." A fatal misjudgment on his part, for her husband Brandt Ruger (Gene Hackman) is not one to fool around with. While out on a hunting party with a few of his friends, the dictatorial and very abusive land baron learns of Bergen's kidnapping, and thus gets blood in his eyes. And rather than going after game, he and his boys instead go after Reed and his gang, picking them off one at a time with high-power rifles that can hit from a distance of 800 yards. The result is a sagebrush variation of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, done with some of the most brutally violent shootouts this side of THE WILD BUNCH and SOLDIER BLUE. And as he is a man driven by extreme jealousy (Bergen is his personal "property", whom he physically abuses on more than one occasion), the fact that Bergen is beginning to develop a rapport with Reed now gives him whatever license he feels he needs to kill her as well, though he drags it out for the sheer sadistic fun of it to a very cynical and blood-splattered conclusion.There isn't too much doubt that THE HUNTING PARTY was made to take advantage of the "market" opened up by THE WILD BUNCH and its director Sam Peckinpah's choreography of violent action, as well the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone. The shootouts are extremely bloody, and they clearly mirror those of THE WILD BUNCH in the use of slow motion and quick cutting. Where THE HUNTING PARTY falls short, however, is in a crucial area that Peckinpah knew was vital to his film being successful: the action and plot must be character-driven and made to feel real to an audience. Veteran TV director Don Medford (who, among other things, directed the classic 1961 Twilight Zone episode "Death's Head Revisited) and screenwriters Gilbert Ralston, William Norton, and Lou Morheim know how to do the Peckinpah-inspired gunfights, but they don't seem to have taken too much time to really delineate any complexities in the three main characters. Bergen is merely a damsel in distress, caught between two men who are basically bastards, one merely semi-controlling (Reed), the other a sadistic control freak of the highest order (Hackman). Absent the complex psychological and character-driven narrative that propelled THE WILD BUNCH to a controversial but well-deserved glory, THE HUNTING PARTY can so easily be tagged, as more than a few critics have done (albeit perhaps too zealously), as an extremely bloody sagebrush shooting gallery in which violence is staged for the sake of violence.The film does succeed in giving us good performances from the three leads (notably Hackman, whose role is credibly sadistic to the highest degree); good cinematography done on location in Spain (as a stand-in for Texas); and supporting roles for L.Q. Jones (a member of Peckinpah's stock company); Simon Oakland; Mitchell Ryan; and William C. Watson. And one can't fault the long-distance shooting that occurs, or the way it so ingeniously borrows a great old-world story (THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME) and puts it into a WILD BUNCH-type western format. Had the filmmakers only paid a bit more attention to complex characters and motives here as Peckinpah had in his epic film, however, THE HUNTING PARTY might have been a bit more than a good, if incredibly and graphically violent, post-Peckinpah/Leone addition to a Western genre that was rapidly changing during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Scarecrow-88 Oliver Reed is an outlaw, Frank Calder, and along with his rugged brood, swipes a cattle baron's wife, and lives to regret it. The cattle baron is Brandt Ruger(Gene Hackman), his wife, Melissa(..the lovely Candice Bergen). So Ruger assembles a group of his friends as a hunting party to seek after Frank and his outlaws, not knowing until much later that Melissa has become quite attached and affectionate towards her kidnapper. This indeed drives Ruger over the edge and there'll be hell to pay before he's through.I'll be honest, the stale plot isn't earth-shattering, and even though the movie results in a bleak, uncompromising, and tragic manner, it's pretty predictable. But, if you want your fix of bloody violence with plenty of people blown away by long range rifles(..mostly by Hackman, who's a crack shot), then "The Hunting Party" might just be what the doctor ordered. It has plenty of familiar faces. LQ Jones a sleazy scoundrel who, while in a drunken high, attempts to rape Bergen, getting his medicine(..what she doesn't complete, Hackman sure as hell does), with Mitchel Ryan as Reed's compadre, Doc, who is gut shot, but lives on the brink of death for damn near an hour as the group move from territory to territory seeking a town physician to pull the bullet buried inside him.The major problem with this western is that you kind of have no one to really side with. Hackman, understandably so, becomes so bloodthirsty, that he alienates those who accompany him on the quest to find Reed. We don't really spend a great deal of time with him, either, so we have little real time to get to know him all that well. He very well could be a disaster of a husband which might explain why Bergman responds so passionately eventually to Reed. We do recognize a friction between the Rugers, and it's visible how Brandt treats her as a prize no one but can claim, but still, Frank isn't exactly the greatest substitute, now is he? But, that scene where Reed forces himself on Bergman is hard to watch, and, despite the fact she succumbs to his desires, that rape does tarnish any sympathy one might have in his favor.The film seems to side with Reed, though, as Hackman just continues to shoot down his men, picking them off in intervals, and we follow them as they grow more weary, their tempers tested due to the fact that they are dying because of a broad. Simon Oakland(..who I consider to be one of the finest television actors in the history of the small screen, his face recognizable across all genres, particularly in the 60's and 70's, most notably, "Kolchak The Night Stalker") is well cast as Matthew Gunn, attempting to be a voice of reason for Ruger, trying to talk some sense into him, especially after it's realized that Melissa has chosen Frank over Brandt. But, it's obvious that Brandt isn't a man to lose any property that's his to anyone, much less an outlaw whose life has been about stealing and killing. Like a lot westerns coming out in the 70's, I reckon "The Hunting Party" suffered as the genre was starting to wain, it very much an example of "The Wild Bunch" influence.