The film embodies the story of an American veteran (Robert De Niro) and a former Serbian soldier (John Travolta). Both men are going through a different path by playing a great game of cat and mouse in the remote Smoky Mountain wilderness and perhaps they will face different challenges.
The pretentious, preposterous, dueling-dialect flameout called "Killing Season" has to stand as one of the biggest missed opportunities in iconic matchups.
Derivative and bizarrely graphic, Killing Season is nothing more than another forgettable entry in two ongoing filmographies that desperately need more inspired professional choices.
It wants to be a war-is-Hell 'coming home' story, but it ends up playing like a cheap action flick starring two men who are obviously too old to be running through the woods beating the living crap out of each other.
Playing out like a brutally graphic Tom and Jerry skit at times, Killing Season lacks the atmospheric tension necessary to keep us consistently engaged.
If you've always wanted to see Robert De Niro forced to thread a steel rod through an open wound and then strung upside down by John Travolta, this is the movie for you.
Comes full up with heavy-handed signifiers, from Ben's choice of reading (Hemingway...) to a hammered motif of lapsed Christianity (the climax takes place in a rotting church) that underlines the theme of living with the sins of the past. [Blu-ray]
