Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

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

goods116 *** SPOILERS *** I liked the first half of this movie, bolstered by an excellent cast of Hackman, Reed and Bergen. The initial set up is a good one: Hackman chasing down Reed and his kidnapped wife by using his long range sniper rifle to gun down Reed and his crew. The first couple of encounters are strong. Of course Bergan falls for Reed. But then that's it. That's pretty much the whole plot. Hackman guns down everyone. No showdown, no interesting shootouts, no twists, no surprise ending, nothing. For Hackman, 70s/genre fans only.

chris-outhouse I watched this film and kept watching it because of my faith in the main actors. They did not let me down. They are terrific and so are those in supporting roles. But they are working with a flawed story and a flawed script. Three quarters way through, the film starts to drag as basically the same thing keeps happening with predictable symmetry. Reed's companions die off and Hackman's leave him. Hackman and Reed are what the story is about and the hangers on, stuck to each of them, become an irrelevance to be got rid of by the script writers so that the story can reach its climax and conclusion. The fundamental flaw in the story is the barely, if at all, discussed willingness of Hackman's hunting party to go after the kidnappers rather than the animal prey. These are rich, "respectable" pillars of society - not the criminals, murderers or dubious posse characters often depicted in such a manhunt in westerns. That does not make them honourable or give them a conscience but they would think twice, big time, if invited to go on a lynching rather than a planned animal hunt. The ending would have been much more interesting if Reed had used his ingenuity to counter Hackman's long range technology ; if he had thought up an ingenious plan to attack his pursuers, and give Hackman (and us) more of a run for his money than just run, fade away into deep sand.

dark_frances The movie contained an existential story, disguised as the story of a queen (Melissa) kidnapped by a charming thief (Frank, played by Oliver Reed), where the king (Brandt, played by Gene Hackman) following them to rescue the queen became a vile avenger, which in its turn was disguised as a story with guns and cowboy hats; but the chain of disguises became along the way somewhat sloppy. The fatalism underlying the whole construction seemed to be artificially created, it didn't follow from a narrative structure that couldn't have evolved differently. More precisely, Frank's unruly gang of gunfighters made every wrong choice possible. After realising that they were attacked, and by very long-range riffles, and by a relentless and merciless pursuer, the only thing they seemed to think of was to keep running forwards (and thus, to keep getting decimated). This attitude would have made sense had they all had Frank's audacity and slightly cynical stance; but they were just some robbers preparing for one last hit! Then, when they realist that the hunters were after Melissa, it was perfectly natural for the other robbers to try to get rid of her, and if Frank wanted to keep her at any cost, the natural course of action would have been for the others to leave Frank. This didn't happen either, everybody remained together, and they kept being decimated like dumb animals on a hunting ground. Sure that this was part of the point of interest – the special riffles made the hunters almost superhuman, and provided them with the impression of safety that surrounds the hunter in a normal hunting party; but like I said, this untouchability was created artificially, by having Frank's gang behave funny, culminating with the final idiotic decision for the gunless Frank and Melissa to go into the desert because Brandt would not follow them there. No, the man had the long-range riffle, and he had stuck with them all the way until then, chasing them into the ultimately open space which is the desert would certainly have been the last thing he would have done.This passivity of the gang of outlaws drove me mad – of course that the courses of action proposed by me could have resulted into an equal disaster, but they didn't even try! Not to mention that changing the way they tackled the problem may have made the story more interesting, like this it got a bit repetitive: slaughter, brief scene with Brandt grinding his teeth, Frank and Melissa in tears over dead friends (and outraged by the meanness of their pursuers, oh why didn't the bad guys just stop the chase already!), peaceful resumption of the journey, fun; slaughter, teeth grinding + tears, journey, fun...Like I said earlier, the story seemed to be an existential one, Brandt looked more like a Nemesis in charge of punishing those who dared to challenge the Order of Things (which was why he died in the end – after finishing the job, he had no more reason to exist), Frank and Melissa looked less like a fugitive couple and more like people touched by hubris, who thought they could take their destiny in their own hands (only to be proved wrong). But then what was the point of the stories about Frank's bad father and other such details? They should have been absent here, like they were absent in a movie like Walter Hill's "The Driver". If this was an archetypal story, then it should have stayed so from the beginning until the end (and it should have chosen a better environment for its tale, not an inexplicably resigned gang of brutish outlaws). However, now in retrospect I discover that various details that seemed pointless at first do make sense and reinforce the idea that Frank tried to mess with the Order of Things, like the very fact that Frank wanted to read – it was not his place to know how to read, like it had not been the place for humans to possess the fire given to them by Prometheus, these were devices of a higher order and those who dared to mess with them (both the wretched humans, and Prometheus respectively Melissa) had to pay dearly. Well, the more I think about the movie under this allegorical reading, the better it seems...Other things that bothered me about The Hunting Party were some random scenes of overacting (like the whole scene of Doc's death, where everybody seemed to have suddenly moved from the Western desert into a Shakespearean play on Broadway), mixed with moments of natural tenderness and human awkwardness (like the scene with the peaches, or like the love/rape scene between Melissa and Frank). The overacting felt out of place.So, read like an allegory, the movie seems to work much better than under a direct reading. This is still a sign of structural sloppiness, because with a different narrative underlayer the structure would have worked much better. I am also somewhat surprised that I appreciated the allegory, as I usually find them dull; I suppose that I am annoyed by transparent fables, those obviously meant to teach us something deep, while this was a very unexpected allegory, talking less about oughts and shouldn't-s and more about the local fate of some daredevil characters, who fitted surprisingly well over mythical figures and ancient plights.

sol1218 **SPOILERS** Coming across like a combination between "The Searchers" and "Wild Bunch" the western revenge movie "The Hunting Party" never quite matches, in blood gore and bullet ridden body's and body parts, either one of those movies. Not that it lacks the vital ingredients of both but because it's so ridiculous that you have a hard time believing it.Riding through the town of Ruger outlaw Frank Calder, Oliver Reed, and his gang of desperado's kidnap Mellissa Ruger, Candice Bergen, for the sole purpose, in mistaking her for an elementary school teacher, of teaching Frank to read! It seems that Frank wants to read about his exploits in the newspapers besides looking at the pictures and comic-strips in them. As this is happening Mellissa's old man that the town of Ruger is named after Brandt Ruger, Gene Hackman, is out on a train trip with his millionaire friends to gun down wild game with this new high powered, that can hit its targets at 800 yards, and telescopic rifle that he gave his friends for a present for going on the trip with him. Getting the shocking news that his old lady, Mellissa, had been kidnapped Brandt shoots right back to Ruger, with his not too willing friends, to track and gun down Mellissa's kidnappers as well as save her from a fate worse then death; Being gang raped by Frank and his motley crew.Gunning down, at long range, most of Frank's men Brandt is shocked to later find out-from one of them- that his pretty and abused, mostly by him, wife has fallen in love with that dirty foul mouth and illiterate slob Frank Calder! By then most of Brandt's men, who are still left alive, decide to call it quits knowing that saving Mellissa is no longer worth their effort. Since she's been stricken not only by Frank's both charm and rugged good looks, not to mention his wild animal-like body odor, but the Stockholm Syndrome, a kidnap victim falling in love with his or her kidnapper, as well. Only Brandt's good friend, the only friend he now has left in the world, Matthw Gunn, Simon Okland, decides to go along with him on his mission to rescue his wife who in fact doesn't want to be rescued by him.The film ends with a one on one confrontation between Frank and Brandt in the Mojave Desert with Matthew Gunn having by then come to his senses and checked out of the movie. With the big winning prize, since by then a couple dozen persons had been killed over her, being non other then Brandt's kidnapped wife and Frank's lover the beautiful and now suffering from a serious case of sun stroke Mellissa Ruger!Not that bad of of film if you don't take it at all seriously and just watch it for laughs which I think that "The Hunting Party" was really intended for. The most moving and at the same time tragic scene in the movie had nothing to do with it's female star-whom everyone was killing themselves over-Candice Bergen but one of Frank's gang members Doc Harrison, Mitch Ryan.***SPOILER ALERT***Badly wounded and dying Doc begged his good friend Frank to put him out of his misery which he didn't have the heart to do. Finally not being able to take it, Doc's groans of agony, anymore Frank did what he had to do but with both deep regret and apprehension. The way Frank did it would literally blow you, like it did Doc, completely away!