Martin, a mercenary, is sent from Europe by a mysterious biotech company to the Tasmanian wilderness on a hunt for the last Tasmanian tiger.
Strip away the exotic locale, and you have yet another tale of an emotionally cut-off male loner spending time around kids and becoming a better person, while, given the leisurely narrative build-up, the film’s climax feels disappointingly rushed.
The domestic and conspiracy elements are so perfunctory you sense the film, like its hero, can’t wait to bugger off into the bush and forget about them altogether.
The Hunter is at its most compelling when it travels light and leaves Dafoe alone on screen. Maybe The Hunter can’t keep its allegorical drama on target, but Dafoe gives a performance that is locked and loaded.
A slow-burning, beautifully shot, understated philosophical thriller.
The Hunter is a taut, thought-provoking and ultimately touching drama with wonderful work from Dafoe, O’Connor and Sam Neill.
[Has] the twin benefits of the stunning Tasmanian scenery and Dafoe's terrific performance to recommend it.
It’s only when Dafoe gets out into the wilderness alone that The Hunter really comes to life, with director Daniel Nettheim clearly more comfortable shooting his rugged star against Tasmania’s atmospheric landscapes than having him chew over the film’s rather creaky dialogue.
Dafoe’s whole mission is eerie and troubling enough to carry the picture along as a muted kind of thriller.
Just when you think the film will go for the kill, it backs off and hides.
As controlled as the hunter’s trigger finger, the film is a mesmerising experience that will reward the patient viewer.
Dafoe is eminently watchable, and for the most part it's a distinctive, atmospheric movie that cherishes the persistence of mystery.
Unfocussed and thematically overburdened. More could have been said with less.
Australian director Daniel Nettheim...may over-egg his final reel with unnecessary tragedy, but until then the film works well – as a gripping thriller, as a melancholy reflection on our treatment of endangered species, and as a human drama.
One of this year's most memorable films, containing one of the best performances, The Hunter is a piece that creeps into the viewer's soul. It is dank and clammy, with ice in its heart, but it is also beautiful and painful, its emotional climaxes hitting home like precision bullets.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
Cameo, Edinburgh from Friday July 20, 2012, until Thursday July 26, 2012. More info: http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/