The Hunted

This familiar, blood-drenched cat-and-mouse action picture pits a contract Special Forces instructor (Tommy Lee Jones) who teaches commandos how to track and kill against a student assassin (Benicio Del Toro) who has become a renegade killing machine. The subtext of government agencies and the general public having to deal with victims of delayed stress syndrome, and a pretentious reference to the biblical request for Abraham to sacrifice his son are tacked on to a series of chases, hand-to-hand battles, captures and escapes that defy reasoning as well as anatomical probability. The only major and very dubious spark of originality features a fight scene in which one combatant flicks his own blood into the eyes of his foe to blind him temporarily. The movie was directed by William Friedkin (To Live and Die in L.A.).