The Hunting Party
If Kent Brockman came to life...
The Three Stooges Go to Bosnia could have been an alternate title for The Hunting Party, an odd political thriller/comedy hybrid mined by writer-director Richard Shepard from a 2000 Esquire article. Naturally, the short piece about a handful of journalists and their attempt to find a war criminal required some tarting to be movie-ready, and Shepard isn't bashful about his embellishments; the end credits, in a rather fun touch, do a quick revisit of the film and point out who and what was real. But "fun" may not be what most people are looking for in a story about an ethnic cleanser and one man's need for revenge.
It all starts out earnestly enough. Network cameraman Duck (Terrence Howard) is in Sarajevo with a just-out-of-J-school reporter, Ben (Jesse Eisenberg), for an easy assignment when he's tracked down by his former partner, Simon (Richard Gere). Simon has become a journalistic cliché – scruffy, drunk, crazed – since an on-air meltdown left him unemployable some 10 years back. But he's got a scoop, and he wants Duck to help him report the story he's sure will get him back in the game: Even though the United Nations have been looking for him for years, Simon knows where to find the Fox (Ljubomir Kerekes), the person responsible for the rape, torture, and slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslims. So the three travel to the country's mountains, where they're immediately threatened and shot at – and as Duck and Benjamin shit their pants, Simon admits that he doesn't really want to interview the Fox, he wants to capture him. OK, not really: It's all about a girl, and Simon wants to kill the guy who took her away from him. And, by the way, he never actually got any tips on his location.
Bumbling and weaponless aren't good things to be in this situation, and the movie does offer some tense, gasp-inducing moments due to the sheer lunacy of these characters' choices. Its light side can be enjoyable as well, particularly the teasing, best-bud chemistry between Gere (doing a more rumpled version on his manic role in The Hoax) and Howard (who's charming as always, if excessively laid-back). With the Fox's real-life counterpart, Radovan Karadzic, still at large, The Hunting Party isn't only trying to compelling, it's begging to be talked about. But chances are you'll be less inclined to discuss world affairs than how in the world a pregnant woman's bloodied corpse could be shown in the same film that brings out a midget in a pink track suit for laughs.