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Season,” a poorly executed war drama, received less than favorable reviews and was only released in a few theaters. This was presumably to complete contractual obligations for its home video release. The movie is an absolute disaster, both in terms of plot and the acting. The film did, to put it lightly, awful low budget movies over the past few years. The film turns out to be poorly written and awfully acted. It’s almost suspicious how bad the history is and how terrifically it mesmerizes the audience to a state of boredom. Disdained and defeated are the words I would use to describe the ungracious fate of this movie.
Benjamin Ford (De Niro) is a soldier who now leads an isolated life in a cabin in the woods. He enjoys listening to Johnny Cash, taking nature photographs, and trying to forget the war. But sometimes, the memories become impossible to escape. One day, his car breaks down and he is saved by a Hunter named Emil Kovac (Travolta) who happens to be in the area for a hunting trip. After discussing their interests over dinner, Ford invites Kovac to join him for his hunting trip the next day.
The next day, they go out, but Ford quickly figures out that the prey Kovac has in mind is not an elk, but himself. It appears that Kovac is indeed a Serbian war criminal who purportedly got captured and executed by Ford, as well as his NATO buddies, after they ‘liberated’ a Bosnian internment camp he was in charge of. After surviving the bullet Ford shot into his back, Kovac has finally tracked down Ford and wishes to seek him out in what he considers to be a fair fight. In doing so, he hopes to reclaim a sense of revenge and purge his conflict-related demons.
In the hands of a great screenwriter, it could have been a smart film amalgamating action with a daunting analysis on the desire humans have for conflict and the backlash of war that damages people emotionally and physically. But the film only deteriorates into a mindless revenge movie filled with grotesque violence and one dimensional characters. For example, one character captures the other and brutally tortures him with waterboarding using lemonade laced with salt until the victim outsmarts the captor and escapes. The mixture of the ‘Spy vs. Spy’ segment in ‘Mad Magazine’ and the ‘Saw’ franchise movies captures the essence of this film.
The greatest enigma in “Killing Season” is how it managed to cast De Niro and Travolta in roles that would ordinarily go to Nicolas Cage and… Nicolas Cage again in an incredibly peculiar dual role. None of Daughtrey’s screenplay’s lack of conflict or understanding of the Serbian-Bosnian saga seems to come as a shock. The one thing perhaps startling is how a film about WWII participants earned the attention of the likes of De Niro and Travolta. Yet, as is the custom for De Niro, he sleepwalks through the movie, making just enough dramatic effort to guarantee payment. Even getting shot in the leg with a bow and arrow isn’t enough to motivate him. The sadness is how little impact he actually has on the entire movie to the point it feels reasonable to assume he wouldn’t even mind.
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