In spite of a fairly respectable cast, most notably Henry Cavill who took the role post-Superman, Night Hunter feels like a story that the folks over at Criminal Minds rejected.
Night Hunter
(2019)
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller, Drama, Crime
Paramount | R – 99 min. – $22.98 | October 15, 2019
Date Published: 10/16/2019 | Author: The Movieman
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Paramount provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 1.75/5 |
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Note: Portions of this review contain major spoilers. Plot Synopsis: Detective Walter Marshall (HENRY CAVILL) tracks down, with the inadvertent help of a former judge-turned-vigilante Michael Cooper (BEN KINGSLEY) and his accomplice Lara (ELIANA JONES) who was kidnapped, and arrests a serial killer Simon Stulls (BRENDAN FLETCHER) who has targeted and murder numerous women. But the game has only just begun even with Simon in custody, he apparently has an accomplice now targeting the police department and their loved ones. Now Marshall and profiler Rachel Chase (ALEXANDRA DADDARIO), along with Cooper, race against the clock to stay one step ahead of their suspect’s deadly plan.
Review: It seems as if every year there’s a movie that comes along that perplexes me. Night Hunter is one of them, not so much the plot, which seems like a script off of the Criminal Minds reject pile, but instead how David Raymond, making his feature film debut, managed to wrangle a rather respectable, somewhat high-profile cast which includes Henry Cavill, Ben Kingsley, Alexandria Daddario, Stanley Tucci (yes, I know he has Transformers: The Last Knight on his resume) and even Nathan Fillion has a small role, though probably cast for shock factor. The problems with Night Hunter are numerous. For one, the amateur director, while seemingly properly shooting the film with his cinematographer, has some unbelievably uneven pacing and even worse, horrid editing where it seems Raymond shot several scenes and then just cobbled the project together with no regard to building any suspense and some plot points were rather awkward. Second, the plot at its core is rather simplistic but the way it’s written and edited is artificially overcomplicated and makes it pretty hard to follow along. Third, the climax is so underwhelming, made me wonder why I wasted my time, and this coming from someone who loves crime-dramas.
Night Hunter is a frustrating film, to be able to get Henry Cavill, a charming dude as he has shown in the past (see Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Mission Impossible: Fallout) as well as Ben “Sexy Beast” Kingsley (though in fairness, Kingsley has been in his fair share of clunkers) and oddly Nathan Fillion sporting a haircut straight out of the 1990s in a tiny role that normally would go to any bit actor, was so wasted with the clumsy material. I suppose this ensemble, which also includes Stanley Tucci and Alexandria Daddario, turned in okay performances but they didn’t exactly get a whole lot to work with. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 0/5 |
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This release comes with a slip cover and redemption code for the Digital HD copy. No features were included. |
VIDEO – 4.25/5 |
| Night Hunter comes to Blu-ray presented with a 2.39 widescreen aspect ratio and a 1080p high-definition transfer. The picture does look fairly good, detail is generally sharp and although this is a dark looking movie, to go along with the tone of the story, there are some splashes of color during the brightly lit scenes, like those in the interrogation room, and skin tones have a natural appearance. |
AUDIO – 4.0/5 |
| The disc includes a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which I found to be pretty effective, though nothing extraordinary, course there’s a little action but the bulk is either ambient/suspense-filled noises or dialogue, which does come through the center channel with good clarity. Depth is pretty standard here, there is one explosion but is shot from a distance so doesn’t have that much impact where it would flood the speakers. |
OVERALL – 2.0/5 |
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In spite of a fairly respectable cast, most notably Henry Cavill who took the role post-Superman, Night Hunter feels like a story that the folks over at Criminal Minds rejected. This was a missed opportunity to make an entertaining suspense-crime-thriller yarn but instead we get messy editing and an oddly overcomplicated plot. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.