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Too much of everything

Powerful

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Death Hunt (1981) *** 1/2 (out of 4)Based on a true story (fictionalized heavily here) of mountain man Albert Johnson (Charles Bronson) who kills a man in self defense but the cowards who attacked him claim that he started it. A mountain law man named Millen (Lee Marvin) asks Albert to come back to town but he refuses. What follows is a hectic chase through the mountains where Albert tries to reach safety while the posse tries to kill him.DEATH HUNT is without question the best movie that Bronson did during a decade where he was doing forgettable films like THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, crazy exploitation like DEATH WISH 3 or downright graphic movies like KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS. Those films that action legend did with Cannon certainly have fans, including myself, but they can't tough that macho-nature of DEATH HUNT. You've got legends like Bronson and Marvin doing battle in the wilderness with non-stop action and extremely graphic violence. What's not the love?There's no doubt that it's Bronson and Marvin that makes this film so memorable. There's a terrific sequence where the characters make a stop to take a breath and they look at each other through a pair of binoculars. Just the smile on both actors face will make any fan smile as well. There aren't many tougher people in the history of cinema and both Bronson and Marvin know this and you can tell they liked playing their toughness off of one another. They each want to up the other and this cat-and-mouse challenge between them really shows up and pays off on the screen with their characters.It certainly doesn't hurt that you've got a terrific supporting cast with many familiar character actors. Andrew Stevens, who would co- star with Bronson in 10 TO MIDNIGHT, is very good as the "new" guy in the force. Carl Weathers always plays it tough and cool. Ed Lauter plays one of the better villains of the decade. A real low- life that you can't wait to see him get him due. Angie Dickinson has a small and rather useless role but it's still nice to see her.The film is also technically well-made with Peter Best doing a nice job directing it. The cinematography is wonderful and the score is quite rousing and keeps you pumped up at the action. As I said, some of the violence is downright brutal and bloody but it adds to the fun. DEATH HUNT really benefits from the setting and getting to see two legendary tough guys doing what they do best. I've seen this movie countless times over the years and it never gets old.

This is formula tough guy vs tough guy manhunt. It's based on an actual incident, and changed to meet Hollywood iconic stereotypes of godlike men.In truth, the real manhunt was for a vicious killer, resulting in a little bit of what we see on film. As far as "literary license" goes, this is not as bad as most movies. However, the real killer was a killer, and was caught.Here, Bronson plays a man wrongly accused, as suits Hollywood. Thanks to Hollywood, people now see fit to judge guilt based on how they feel about the person politically. That's changed a bit in the last ten years, but in the seventies and eighties, it was very racist.Bronson's character is likable, though. He does what he needs to survive. As a story on its own, if one wants to call it a fiction piece, it works very well. Lee Marvin is a good grunting sort of mountie who takes on the aristocratic sort of mountie rookie, the idealist so popular in this era, who would learn that grunting is better than being civilized.The real story comes with the supporting characters. Three in particular, who have a later rendezvous with destiny. An old trapper, and a pair of trappers who are low in the pecking order, one of them completely on the bottom, the other who bullies him around.It is a story mostly of the pecking order of bullies in the savage wilderness. That part is done fairly well. It could have been much worse.

Here is a story set in Canada about Canadians and yet it was made by the US. I have to ponder why Canada didn't jump on doing this story themselves. If one wonders why Canadian movies are so lame (about failure, disease, depression, weird humor) I would say it is because culturally we have an aversion to examining ourselves in a critical fashion whereas other countries do it quite naturally. England has made films about notorious murders, same with Australia, or Germany (Tenderness of the Wolves), and of course, the US. This story would have been perfect material for a domestic movie--but I can find no evidence that Canada ever sought to make this story themselves. I can understand with the stars involved that they dramatized it and changed the facts, but if it were done with no stars, and kept to the historical story, it still would have been fascinating. But the government film funding bodies don't like stories that present Canada in a negative light. At least in the English side-I know Quebec has covered stories on its history in fictional fashion. I remember the furor over a Canadian murder case when a Canadian producer wanted to make a film about it and was harshly condemned, so the US made it-and Canadian crew people vowed not to work on it. This is seriously screwed up thinking. If Canada wants to develop a normal film industry it needs to be less reserved and more self-examining.... On the film itself, I agree with the sentiments that you wouldn't see this film made today-and if you did, it would star model-types. Character actors have really gone extinct. Some of the melodramatic touches in the film worked for me (the dog, the trapper Bill), others fell flat(the inserted love story). Still, Bronson was effective (you could totally believe he was a rugged mountain man) and Marvin had some good lines (I am sure Canadian government culture ministers would have axed his comment calling the trappers "savages" if it was made in country).

Shades of the contemporary Rambo theme as Bronson kills a violent trapper in self defence and is in turn hunted for murder. He uses his knowledge of the land and survival to outwit his would-be captors in a protracted standoff that spans time and stunning Alaskan landscapes. Bronson doesn't have much to say, although his wily counterpart Marvin as the Royal Candadian Mounted Policeman is at his wits end as his inept and poorly disciplined posse fall victim to Bronson's animal-like instincts and superior survival skills as the unforgiving winter closes in.Angie Dickinson, while top billed is essentially wasted in a frivolous supporting role as Marvin's casual squeeze, a rather limp role that peters out early in the film. Carl Weathers and Andrew Stevens are the cavalry, and Ed Lauter is at his villainous best as the key protagonist who goads Bronson into his murderous siege.Glorious snow-covered landscapes, tense action and a great cast of familiar faces (Sanderson, Lesser, Barnes, Chaykin etc) create a westernised "Death Wish" meets "First Blood" with Bronson and Marvin the two old salts forging mutual respect out of a relentless and increasingly deadly cat and mouse in which the mouse is fatally underestimated. It's the ideal situation for a number of bloody encounters as the various oddball characters, spurred on by a bounty, test their exaggerated skills against Bronson and invariably end up dead. Vintage stuff from two legends of the screen.