Review of Killing Season (2013) by Cael M — 28 Jul 2013

Killing Season is a gratuitously gory, pretentious thriller that doesn't understand how good of a concept it has, nor does it recognize the talents of the two lead actors. The thought of having both Robert De Niro and John Travolta on screen together is surely an exciting thought, but director Mark Steven Johnson buries them under tons of propaganda and a lack of thrills from its intriguing premise. This is a missed opportunity of a great thriller, and apparently John McTiernan almost directed the first draft, but unfortunately, the end result was left with directing by the same man behind the first Ghost Rider movie, as opposed to a potential end result by the man behind classics like Predator and Die Hard 1 and 3. Killing Season wants to be some sort of groundbreaking, artsy thriller with thought-provoking subtext, but at the same time, it wants to be a mainstream cat and mouse thriller as well, and the overall result is forgettable and very bland.

Killing Season is about an aging American military veteran named Benjamin Ford (Robert De Niro) who attempts to forget about the horrors of his experience in the Bosnian war by isolating himself from civilization in a cabin in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. However, a former Bosnian soldier named Emil Kovac (John Travolta) seeks revenge on Ford because of Ford's actions during the war to him, and as he visits the Appalachian Mountains in search of him, Emil poses as a European tourist. He meets Ford and Emil pretends to be his acquaintance, but when Kovac reveals his intentions, he starts a one-on-one war against each other in the mountains. It doesn't begin with much promise, so right from the beginning, I started to worry about a missed opportunity with such an interesting premise. It opens up with war sequences regarding the Bosnian war, and the information given is delivered in a serious tone, which obviously wouldn't have been a problem had the information given not been biased lies.

Even if you try to view this movie as pure fiction, it's incompetent and disjointed. The acting is mainly just Robert De Niro and John Travolta against each other in the Appalachians, and De Niro is alright but Travolta is laughable and cringe-worthy. De Niro isn't bad here, and he certainly doesn't reach his past heights of his career, but the biggest problem is that considering the material he's given is so bland, it feels like his role could've been played by just about anyone. Travolta is beyond bad here, and just knowing that he has a Bosnian accent is enough to not expect much from his performance. It's very obvious that it's a fake accent, and it's even worse when you hear him singing Johnny Cash's "Don't Take Your Guns To Town". It's not unbearable, thankfully, since it can be viewed as comedic gold. I feel bad for these two actors, especially looking at their past career (especially De Niro), and I feel like the only reason they signed up for this movie was for quick cash. It's safe to say that their reign of being good actors is clearly over.

On to the actual one-on-one war in the Appalachian Mountains, it's quite disappointing and unnecessarily gory. It's definitely not for the squeamish, but I had no problem with the levels of gore. It's the fact that there was absolutely no point of having it, and it took me out of the film constantly. There's one scene where De Niro shoots an arrow through Travolta's jaw, and then ties him down on a mat and pours salted lemonade on his wounds. There are plenty of scenes like that throughout the movie, and if you get a kick out of that kind of torture, you'll probably be amused. The torture is reminiscent to Eli Roth's macabre torture sequences, and it feels sadistic and very gratuitous. There is zero tension in the cat-and-mouse chase, especially when there are action sequences bogged down by shaky cam to hide bad stunt work and the use of stuntmen. Everything feels so predictable in the chase, and right when one of them are about to get killed mindlessly by the other, they somehow escape, and it gets on repeating.

Apparently the script has been recognized as an impressive script that has been unused and un-produced, and it definitely doesn't live up to that reputation. The dialogue between the characters is really nothing special or smart at all, and it's more bland than engaging. There are poor attempts to build the characters' relationships between each other near the beginning when Travolta is deceiving De Niro as a European tourist, and at times, it even feels like a buddy-comedy. After that, the writing doesn't get much better, and any attempts at building tension and conflicts between the two are failed. There is no meat nor substance, but there are obvious, pretentious attempts, especially with the many religious themes as well as themes that try to bring up topics of human nature. I'm about to spoil the ending of the movie (not like it really matters), but before that, there are some nice things about the movie. The cinematography of the Appalachian Mountains is truly beautiful and very nice to look at, and I feel like the director tried to replicate the mood and the tone of John Boorman's Deliverance from 1972. At times, it's surprisingly effective, and I also liked the music here.

----Spoilers----.

The ending of the movie tries to be something surprising, special, and riveting, but it's questionable. Before Travolta betrays De Niro in the middle of the film, they go on a hunting trip, and De Niro is telling a story to Travolta, but Travolta tells him to kill the hunting prey in front of him, calling it purely "meat and flesh" and tells him to put it out of its misery. The climax takes place in a church and De Niro beats Travolta and ties him up, putting him on top of a cliff, about to murder him. Travolta then urges De Niro to shoot him in the head, while Travolta calls himself "meat and flesh", telling De Niro to put him out of his misery. De Niro doesn't shoot and then he unties Travolta, and they stop fighting and they become "friends" in a way. De Niro then finishes his story from before the conflict, and the two discuss themes of the war, then proceeding to go on about their daily life. It makes absolutely no sense, especially when you look back at all the events that happened, such as shooting another in the jaw with an arrow. It tries to bring up themes about the Bosnian war, but all it ends up doing is depicting the Serbians as terrorists and savages, and it serves as propaganda towards the Americans. It's a pretentious, bad ending.

----End of Spoilers----.

Killing Season is a waste of time, and I have no idea as to why I'm talking so much about it. I just feel the need to express my thoughts on attempts like these that come off as pretentious and incompetent messes. Even with an interesting, simple story, and two ex-great actors, Killing Season fails to deliver anything thrilling, nor does it deliver anything thought-provoking or relevant. It never manages to go deeper into the idea of post-war trauma, nor does it truly become a riveting experience about a potentially dark and disturbing topic. I could go on for a long time as to why this movie is bad, but there's really no point when I could easily summarize it's success as a pointless endeavor that lacks any distinction or any focus whatsoever. Killing Season is a terrible thriller, and it's unfortunate that it fails to meet any of the the potential that it had.