Mark Reviews Movies: NIGHT HUNTER

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 5, 2019

One could say that Night Hunter is a nasty movie, considering the way it routinely puts women (and, in a particularly unnecessary scene, a newborn baby) in peril and really doesn't seem to care about the fact of the multiple murdered women at the core of its plot. These details serve as evidence of an inescapable truth about writer/director David Raymond's thriller, but then, we get to the matter of the plot itself.

While we might be uncomfortable about the ease with which Raymond turns every woman in this movie into a victim at some point, it's even easier to start to forget that fact when the wheels of his convoluted story begin spinning. To be fair, the filmmaker sets up some intriguing ideas—about the way that the law seems to get in the way of justice—and characters—a vigilante who baits sex offenders online before exacting what he believes to be proper punishment, for example—before that plot is set in motion. Once the gears start turning, though, all of that intrigue is ignored for an elaborate game in which we're never quite certain about the stakes, the methods, or the goal.

It begins pretty simply, as a young woman (wearing only underwear and a loose-fitting shirt) is running through the woods somewhere in Minnesota, in order to escape from her captor (This is one of those thrillers in which the identity of the real villain is a big, head-scratching twist for the climax). Instead of being captured again, she falls off a bridge and crashes on a passing truck. This turn of events is quite convenient for the plot, although the woman still is killed, because, again, this is that kind of movie.

The discovery of the body is a big help for Marshall (Henry Cavill), a local police detective who has become obsessed with the disappearances of multiple women in the area. Obviously, this obsessive quality resulted in a divorce, so he only gets to see his daughter on certain weekends. Is there anything more to his character, other than the fact that his co-worker Rachel (Alexandra Daddario) appears to have a crush on him (The awkward hug she gives him is about the end of developing that relationship until the finale)? No, there isn't, because this is also the kind of movie in which character development beyond clichés would get in the way of the plotting.

Through some lucky police work, Marshall guesses the location where the woman fell, and he gets a bit more luck in the personage of Cooper (Ben Kingsley), a retired judge who became disillusioned with the justice system after his wife and daughter (naturally, for this movie) were murdered by a man he allowed to go free. With the help of Lara (Eliana Jones), Cooper now tricks sex offenders into meetings and "disarms" them.

Lara ends up captured by the serial killer (because of course she does). With the help of a tracking device and his earlier guesswork, Marshall finds her and also arrests Simon (Brendan Fletcher), the man who has been doing the kidnapping, torturing, and murdering.

As it turns out, all of this is basically the prologue to the actual story, which has an unknown person threatening and killing the cops, apparently in an attempt to get Simon released or to help him escape. None of that is made particularly clear, since the real point of the movie is the game itself.

There's really not much to it. The cops investigating the basement of Simon's house are killed with gas. Another is blown up in his car. A technician's newborn baby is kidnapped, and a mysterious box is brought to the police station (It should be obvious what's inside the box, but the real discomforting part, beyond the use of a baby as a plot mechanic, is how Raymond toys with the fate of the infant in a single shot).

Whatever ideas might be on Raymond's mind with this material are unceremoniously dropped (It basically comes down to whether or not Simon and the person playing the game should be killed without due process). So, too, are seemingly important characters, such as Cooper, who gives Marshall a lecture about extrajudicial punishment as the only solution to certain criminals, and Rachel, who offers a lot of psychobabble about Simon—before becoming yet another on the long list of women in distress here.

Night Hunter only has two things to offer: a foul attitude toward women and a messy jumble of plot. That's a no on both counts, thank you.

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