Review: Killing Season

Robert De Niro plays a retired American military man who has secluded himself up in the Appalachian mountains, resisting his son Milo Ventimiglia’s invitation to his own grandson’s christening. John Travolta (who needs to quit with the goofy, tacked-on facial hair obsession already) plays a former Serbian paramilitary dude who has travelled to the US supposedly to go hunting in the mountains. We know pretty early on, however, that Travolta has a personal beef with De Niro that goes back to the Bosnian-Serbian conflict in the mid-90s. Travolta claims to be Bosnian, and De Niro doesn’t immediately recognise him. Unfortunately, before he has time to, this hunting enthusiast is about to become the hunted, as old wounds are re-opened, as well as a few fresh wounds. However, don’t think shrapnel-embedded, psychologically scarred old De Niro is gonna be easy pickings, there’s still life in him yet.

 

Beware any film featuring Robert De Niro and John Travolta that you’ve never heard of. When that film comes from Millennium Films, the modern day Cannon…run away. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson (who previously directed the underrated “Simon Birch”, the watchable “Ghost Rider”, and the not terribly memorable “Daredevil”) from a tired and clichéd screenplay by Evan Daugherty (“Snow White and the Huntsman”), this 2013 direct-to-DVD effort (with the requisite 69 billion producers from Millennium) goes nowhere slowly. The scenery is nice, but this is a waste of time and talent, playing like a script Millennium had lying around from a Steven Seagal or Dolph Lundgren film that never got off the ground. Travolta’s never been the best judge of quality but what the fuck did De Niro see in this?

 

The film mixes “Deadly Pursuit”-esque mountain-set thriller with a dose of Serbian torture porn (and mere lip service at best to themes of war and genocide), but none of it is remotely entertaining, especially with a hokey, unconvincingly accented Travolta dragging it down. He’s ridiculous and stupid, whilst De Niro is just OK to be charitable. Despite my suspicions of its script’s origins, apparently it was originally conceived as a “Face/Off” reunion for Travolta and Nic Cage, to be directed by John McTiernan (“Predator”, “Die Hard”). I wasn’t a fan of the original John Woo nonsense, but it still probably would’ve been better than this, with a reliable hand of the action genre like McTiernan at the helm. As is? Nothing to see here, move along. It’s not bad enough nor good enough to warrant any more attention.

 

Rating: D+