Take two great actors, one forest and think about endless possibilities for film stories.
Casting two great actors Robert De Niro and John Travolta, together for the first time in their careers sounds like a promising project. Add one lame screenplay and the film is destined straight for video release.
Hollywood is still trying to cash in on civil war in former Yugoslavia, that ended 20 years ago.
It is no surprise that this conflict has offered inspiring material to many Hollywood screenwriters including Angelina Jolie who wrote and directed her debut film "In the land of blood and honey" in 2011.Needless to say the film did not see cinema release in many countries, including Australia.
Writer Evan Daugherty, writer of Snow White and the Huntsman, has a great premise for the film.
Benjamin Ford (De Niro) is a career soldier who is now spending his retirement in virtual isolation in his cabin in the woods, where he takes nature photos, listens to Johnny Cash albums and struggles to forget the horrors that he experienced while in the field in former Yugoslavia. There is no peace for Ford when Emil Kovac, Serbian soldier who was captured and supposedly executed by Ford and his fellow NATO troops after they liberated a Bosnian internment camp shows up in his woods. Having survived the bullet Ford put in his back, Kovac has finally tracked him down and now wants to go after him in a fair fight in order to get revenge.
The film gives no background to the conflict with occasional flashbacks to the war.
De Niro looks exhausted, his heart not in the film, surrendering to the weak screenplay. There is a difference between being nonchalant, as he plays many of his other roles, however that approach does not work in this film.
Travolta on the other hand throws himself at playing a Serbian soldier. This is opportunity in his film career to play a very different character yet he does not rise to the opportunity. His accent is appalling, his look is that of a Muslim devotee not a Serbian Orthodox.
Hollywood is famous for typecasting certain nationalities, never looking under the surface and it is no wonder that Killing Season has done it again with the portrayal and blame of Serbian nation through one character.
The scenery is stunning and it provides perfect background for a revenge movie.
Primal is revealed as two, Ford and Kovac are chasing each other in the forest, brutality of human mind opening up as Ford's leg is being pierced by Kovac's arrow.
There are some very powerful and nice moments in the film, such as bonding session between Ford and Kovac, as Kovac tempts Fords to drink Jagger master, two of them slowly opening up to each other, Johnny Cash music in the background.
However the film fails to deliver on deeper level, not teaching us anything about human condition.
As a thriller Killing Season could work, yet the superficial screenplay, annoying accent and unconvincing characters are distractions that I could not overcome to completely embrace the film.
