Taglines: Some men should not be found.
In the green woods of Silver Falls, Oregon, Aaron Hallam, a trained assassin AWOL from the Special Forces, keeps his own brand of wildlife vigil. After Hallam brutally slew four deer hunters in the area, FBI Special Agent Abby Durrell turns to L.T. Bonham– the one man who may be able to stop him. At first L.T. resists the mission. Snug in retirement, he’s closed off to his past, the years he spent in the Special Forces training soldiers to become skilled killers. But when he realizes that these recent slaying is the work of a man he trained, he feels obligated to stop him.
Accepting the assignment under the condition that he works alone, L.T. enters the woods, unarmed–plagued by memories of his best student and riddled with guilt for not responding to Aaron’s tortured letters to him as he began to slip over the edge of sanity. Furious as he is with his former mentor for ignoring his pleas for help, Aaron knows that he and L.T. share a tragic bond that is unbreakable.
The Hunted is an American action thriller film directed by William Friedkin and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro. Brian Tyler composed the film’s score.
About the Story
U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Aaron Hallam (Benicio del Toro), a former United States clandestine operator, is introduced initially as the focus of the story. He is shown to have performed extraordinarily courageous and savage tasks in the course of government service. These actions leave the sensitive and intelligent Hallam conflicted and it is portrayed that he was either set up, or that the government was at some point later dissatisfied with the results of his further assignments.
In the wilderness of Silver Falls State Park, Oregon, a man is seen being stalked seemingly by 2 hunters. By the type of advanced optics on their weapons and their dialog they are clearly not ordinary hunters. They are hunting Hallam who is at that point hiding in the wilderness. Hallam dispatches the 2 using only his knife, and proceeds to ritualistically clean and butcher the bodies in the manner of a hunter.
L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones), a civilian instructor of military survival and combat training, is approached and asked to help apprehend Hallam, who was one of his former students. According to the authorities, the younger man has gone renegade after suffering severe battle stress from his time in the Kosovo War.
Bonham agrees and is assisted in the manhunt by an FBI task force, led by Assistant Special Agent in Charge Abby Durrell (Connie Nielsen). It is Bonham himself who locates Hallam after tracking him and finding his personal effects within a hollow tree trunk deep in the woods. After a blistering bout of hand to hand fighting in which the much older Bonham is virtually knocked unconscious, Hallam is captured by the arriving FBI agents.
During his interrogation, Hallam shows himself endowed with a passion for wildlife preservation, much like his mentor Bonham. He mentions military operations in which he had participated and Bonham cuts him off for his own safety. The FBI is unsure of how to treat their would-be murder suspect and Hallam is soon in the custody of his former Special Forces colleagues, now dressed in low-key matching government issue trench coats.
The Hunted
Directed by: William Friedkin
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio Del Toro, Connie Nielsen, Leslie Stefanson, John Finn, José Zúñiga, Ron Canada, Jenna Boyd
Screenplay by: David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths
Production Design by: William Cruse, Kerry Wallum
Cinematography by: Caleb Deschanel
Film Editing by: Augie Hess
Costume Design by: Gloria Gresham
Set Decoration by: Rick Simpson
Music by: Brian Tyler
MPAA Rating: R for strong bloody violence and some language.
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: March 14, 2003
