Our Rating: 2.00
A hyperviolent mishmash that features the worst performance of Benicio del Toro’s otherwise fantastic career. Still curious? We also have a supermodel FBI agent (Connie Nielsen), an afterthought girlfriend who speaks “regular gal” like a Julliard grad (Leslie Stefanson), and the dependable Tommy Lee Jones as a survival teacher-cum-wolf-lovin’ mountain man. Aaron Hallem (del Toro), a knives-only military assassin, witnesses a horrific genocide while waiting to kill a Serbian warlord. Upon developing post-traumatic stress disorder (dark room, flashbacks–duh) he reaches out to former instructor L.T. Bonham (Jones), who ignores his sycophantic letters/cries for help. Hallem descends into hunter-murdering madness, luring Bonham out of retirement as the only person who can stop him. No script integrity or character development here, but we are treated to a laughable chase scene and an ending my 4-year-old niece could have written. Barely directed by William Friedkin.
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2003.