The Hunting Party.

"Richard Shepard only thinks he knows how to fake it so real that he's beyond fake, bringing the same obnoxious, flashy style and go-nowhere satirical instincts to The Hunting Party that he applied to The Matador and the pilot episode of ABC's Ugly Betty," writes Ed Gonzalez at Slant.

"[I]n recounting the tale of a fallen from grace, Peter Arnettesque war journalist (Richard Gere) who enlists his former cameraman (Terrence Howard) and a green, network executive's son (Jesse Eisenberg, terrific) in a clandestine quest to capture a notorious Serbian war criminal dubbed 'The Fox' (Ljubomir Kerekes), the film leaves the serious spectator angry and threatened by how little it's willing to explore the fascinating aspects of a parochial and still nationalistic Serbian present; instead it's easier to make these people into savages and morons, which it does with shrewd skill," writes Brandon Harris.

Updated through 9/10.

"Like many of the best movies about war and its lingering echo, The Hunting Party is full of dark humor," writes Robert Wilonsky in the Voice. Shepard "is becoming a master at finding the right tone, balancing the seriousness of his characters' purpose with the madness of their intentions. He's also found his style—and it's noisy and sentimental and crude and a total goddamned blast."

"[P]erhaps fearing that the subject matter is just too depressing for mainstream audiences," Shepard "keeps his finger on the parody panic button, and presses it more and more desperately as the film progresses," writes Lee Marshall in Screen Daily.

For Benjamin Strong, writing in the L Magazine, the movie's "the latest example of the war comedy, a black humor subgenre that includes Dr Strangelove, M*A*S*H, Three Kings and, so long as you are sufficiently baked, anything Vietnam-related by Oliver Stone.... The trouble with The Hunting Party is that, unlike its predecessors, it isn't particularly funny."

In the Los Angeles Times, Matea Gold traces the film's seven-year journey from the pages of Esquire to the screen.

Updates, 9/10: This is one "a misfired, misguided would-be satire," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "The tone lurches from maudlin to arch to frantic. Every so often a corpse pops up on screen as a reminder of just how unfunny this whole thing is."

"The script feels flabby and slapdash, full of interesting ideas but cursory and underdeveloped, from the torrents of expository dialogue to the newsreel footage that comes out of nowhere and the gratuitously bared breasts," writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times, "(Though you have to hand it to the filmmakers for their how-do-we-wedge-these-in-here ingenuity.)"

Posted by dwhudson at September 6, 2007 3:36 PM