‘Hunting Season’ Review: Magnetic Mel Gibson Boosts Formulaic Actioner

“It takes an awful lot to kill a person,” observes Bowdrie, the central character in RJ Collins’ thriller Hunting Season. As played by Mel Gibson, Bowdrie is the strong, silent type, only speaking when he must. He lives in a cabin in the woods with his teenage daughter Tag (an excellent Sofia Hublitz, Ozark) and only goes into town when he has to pick up supplies. It’s clear that he just wants to be left alone — but since that wouldn’t make for much of a movie, you can rest assured he’ll soon have to demonstrate that he’s developed some serious fighting skills somewhere along the way.

The film’s plot is set in motion when Tag discovers a severely injured young woman washed up from the river near their cabin. She’s suffered bullet wounds, so Bowdrie, who also apparently possesses medical skills, sets out to remove the bullets from her body. He advises Tag to leave the room, informing her, “It’s gonna get pretty screamy in here.”

It turns out that the young woman, whose name is January (Shelley Hennig, Unfriended), is being pursued by a local gang led by the very sadistic Alejandro (Jordi Molla). The criminals have also murdered a police deputy, whose body is found in the same river, and January’s roommate. They obviously mean business, and Bowdrie decides to protect her while keeping her presence a secret from the local police he doesn’t trust.

When a couple of thugs show up at his home looking for January, Bowdrie makes short order of them, burning their bodies to destroy the evidence. Later, Tag reveals that she’s a chip off her old man’s block when it comes to wielding a rifle.

Reminiscent of the B-movie actioners that Charles Bronson regularly pumped out in the ‘80s, Hunting Season is the sort of routine, VOD-headed project that former A-list movie stars turn to when their careers cool off. That doesn’t mean that Gibson walks through it. The actor delivers an understated but intense turn demonstrating why he once headlined movie theater marquees. He’s a lot more weathered, but his blue eyes still blaze the way they did when he was making those Lethal Weapon movies. 

His character doesn’t say a whole lot in the film, and when he does talk, he gets right to the point. “I’ll make this simple,” Bowdrie says to a thug he’s got tied up with a strung-up lawnmower dangling perilously close to his face. “You tell me what I want to know or I’ll kill you.”

Gibson delivers macho lines like this with true conviction, but it’s more fun when he gets to showcase his playful side. Frustrated when the stubborn crook won’t talk, Bowdrie complains, “What is wrong with you? If you had a lawnmower in my face, I’d tell you everything.”

The actor’s charisma keeps the formulaic movie afloat, while director Collins displays a flair for action scenes with a well-choreographed shoot-out when Bowdrie invades the criminals’ lair after they’ve gotten hold of January. And as the above quotes demonstrate, screenwriter Adam Hampton provides some enjoyably meaty dialogue for the actors to chew on.

Films such as this require a memorable villain, and the eccentric Alejandro more than fits the bill. Molla plays him in such a weird, off-kilter fashion that at first you don’t know whether to find the character laughable or scary. Ultimately the actor’s baroque flamboyance works nicely against Gibson’s underplaying, with their climactic encounter proving memorable indeed.