50
Slant Magazine by Jesse Cataldo
The film refuses to focus on its core story, hedging its bets with forays into family drama, environmental thriller, and corporate intrigue.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
The idea of Willem Dafoe, one of our most watchable actors, playing a man stalking a thought-to-be-extinct animal in the wild is gripping in theory. In execution, however, The Hunter loses its way.
60
You watch Dafoe's intelligent hands skillfully setting traps, building fires and squeezing triggers, and wonder if an entire movie might be made of such manly components. Probably not.
75
Dafoe proves to have the right blend of ruggedness and sensitivity for this conflicted hero. The actor's habit of maintaining a lavishly styled coiffure in all situations, even when his character is meant to be sleeping in the rain for days on end, is becoming distracting, though.
67
Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov
Dafoe, as expected, is magnificent in the taciturn role, but the film tends to falter when he's not out stalking, combining as it does elements of family drama, environmental outrage, and outright suspense.
50
Village Voice by Melissa Anderson
The Hunter is too many films in one.
63
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
At the core of the movie is the message that the real lonely hunter is the heart.
70
Scene by scene The Hunter, adapted from a novel by Julia Leigh, holds your attention like a pair of big, inquisitive eyes, or perhaps the point-blank scope of an automatic rifle.
75
The movie fumbles badly when it's time to turn those actions toward resolution, forcing an ending that seems both arbitrary and cruel. At under 80 minutes, the movie is terse enough that it could do without trumped-up events.
90
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
The Hunter never declares who is good or bad or right or wrong. And the implications of Martin's decision when the moment of truth finally arrives are left for the viewer to unravel.