"The Hunting Party" got lost at the boxoffice, but deserves to be GPS'd on DVD.
The Richard Gere-starrer started life as an Esquire article about five journalists who get drunk and decide to spend part of their vacation hunting a Serbian war-crimes fugitive. The single-disc DVD
So you can watch the movie, read the source material, and then get the lowdown from guys who lived the adventure. That's using the DVD medium.
Like Gere's recent "The Hoax," about Clifford Irving, the movie has trouble selling its many absurdities. Still, it's a road trip well worth taking. Gere plays a rogue TV reporter who specializes in screwing up while covering the latest global stewpot of violence. Terrence Howard is his ex-cameraman, talked into making the ridiculously dangerous journey into the mountains of east Bosnia.
Director Richard Shepard ("Matador") insisted on filming in Serajevo, where memories of the brutal war remain fresh with the local crew and extras. For the mountain scenes, "Hunting Party" had to film in Croatia because of land-mine dangers in Bosnia. Before starting production, Shepard, too, went in search of the genocide suspect Dr. Radovan Karadzic, retracing the journalists' hell ride.
Over ale, the journalists recall their trip as "like going to Dresden after the bombing and saying you were on vacation." The mountain villages had a "creepy incestuous feel." Up there, "the stupider we acted, the more people assumed we were CIA." The real "Dark Side" ops from the CIA were not amused.
Director Shepard tells his story in the making-of and in a feature-length commentary. He also conducts the chucklehead interviews and does commentary over a handful of deleted scenes. Fortunately, he's a skilled storyteller.
Also circling the DVD blog's players this week are "This Sporting Life" from Criterion, MGM's all-action "The John Frankenheimer Collection
Pick of the week: The John Frankenheimer Collection
Dog of the week: Sex and Breakfast
New and notable:
Banacek season 2 (Arts Alliance America)
Barney Miller: The Complete Second Season (Sony)
ER: The Complete Eighth Season (Warner)
Fatal Contact (Dragon Dynasty)
4 X Agnes Varda (The Criterion Collection)
Miss Julie (Criterion)
This Sporting Life (Criterion)
The Game Plan (Disney)
The Girls Next Door season 3 (Fox)
Hawaii Five-O season 3 (Paramount)
The Hunting Party (Weinstein Co./Genius Products)
The Jeff Corwin Experience (Genius Products)
The John Frankenheimer Collection (MGM)
Moliere (Sony)
The Odd Couple season 3 (Paramount)
Saw IV (Lionsgate)
The Simple Life: Goes To Camp (Fox)
Complete list of today's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org
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