The Hunter Reviews

Steve McQueen became a TV star with a western bounty hunter show called "Wanted, Dead or Alive." McQueen returns to his bounty-hunting roots here as Papa Thorson, but unfortunately THE HUNTER is more dead than alive. Supposedly based on a real bounty hunter's life, this episodic film never focuses on anything long enough for the audience to care about it, and characters race in and out of the story without introduction or development. Several attempts at action sequences fall flat, while the gag about McQueen's character being a poor driver and wrecking several automobiles only works if you recall that he was supposed to be a whiz behind the wheel in BULLITT. A great deal of the film makes no sense whatsoever, suggesting it was heavily edited. Better you should watch reruns of "Wanted, Dead or Alive," which have beginnings, middles, and ends. THE HUNTER only has a middle, and a fairly dull one at that. Sadly, it was McQueen's last film.