Review of Killing Season (2013) by Aleksej J — 21 Jul 2013

"A very inept cat-and mouse thriller starring Robert De Niro and John Travolta".

Movie Review: Killing Season.

Date Viewed: July 20 2013.

Directed By Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil, Ghost Rider and When in Rome).

Screenplay By Evan Daugherty.

Starring: Robert De Niro, John Travolta, Milo Ventimiglia and Elizabeth Olin.

For years, I've always wanted to see Robert De Niro and John Travolta together in a movie. The first big-screen pairing of De Niro and Travolta could have been some ing special but instead it's just another paycheck movie that's only getting a limited release in theaters before being released on DVD next month.

Travolta plays Emil Kovac, a former Serbian soldier who is left for dead by American soldiers in the 1995 Yugoslavia wars. 18 yea later, he receives information about the retired colonel charged with killing him and he starts to track him down.

That colonel is Benjamin Ford (De Niro), a former military veteran who know lives in a cabin near the Appalachian Mountains and he avoids his very glimpsed family. When Ford's Land Rover gets broken, Kovac (posing as a tourist visiting Tennessee) somehow finds Ford and he eventually helps him out. Ford soon invites Kovac to his cabin and they both have about six drinks, boring conversations and listen to old Johnny Cash records.

The next morning, Ford agrees to join Kovac for a deer hunt, with both men carrying crossbows. When Kovac reveals his true identity to Ford. They play a bloody game of cat-and-mouse with both men torturing one another. I kid you not, De Niro is soon hanged upside down by Travolta and De Niro is forced to thread a steel rod through an open wound. De Niro also fires an arrow that pierces both of Travolta's cheeks and pins him to the cabin door and De Niro even water boards him with heavily salted lemonade.

The screenplay by Evan Daugherty (Snow White and the Huntsman) moves at a slow pace with no place to go and De Niro and Travolta are the main problems with this movie. Travolta's Serbian accent is so bad it makes his female role in "Hairspray" seem more enjoyable. De Niro on the other hand looks miserable to be in this, Really? You weren't miserable when you agreed to be in "The Big Wedding"? We also have to believe that a document glimpsed on-screen claims De Niro's character was born in 1970. Wow! How can Robert De Niro be 43 years old when he looks like he's 70. Another problem with "Killing Season" is with the fight scenes between Travolta and De Niro, you can obviously it's De Niro's stunt double doing the action scenes which are poorly edited.

I was clearly eager and excited to see Robert De Niro and John Travolta together in a movie for the first time ever but unfortunately I wish I was still waiting because "Killing Season" is a time-killer action movie that is beyond preposterous and derivative.