Hunted (2012)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio & Animation Deleted Scenes
Rating
Year Of Production	2012
Running Time	440:00
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (4)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	S.J. Clarkson Daniel Percival Alrick Riley James Strong
Studio Distributor	Entertainment One	Starring	Melissa George Patrick Malahide Stephen Dillane
Case	?
RPI	$49.95	Music	Ruth Barrett

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 English Dolby Digital 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Melissa George's reactions to questions on television recently, closely followed by the announcement of this show's cancellation by the BBC have brought Hunted more notice than it probably had before those events. It certainly seems a harsh choice to cancel this show as it it really quite good and different to other recent shows. There has actually been subsequent news that the Cinemax network, which co-produced this first season with the BBC is considering taking the whole show over themselves rather than let it finish. I would certainly be keen to see another season of this show.

    The concept here is quite a different setting to other shows being the first show I have seen set in a private intelligence agency which works for commercial clients, essentially industrial espionage. The agency is called Byzantium and in this series they have been hired by a client to ensure that they win a bid to take over and run a major dam project in Pakistan. The team at the coal face do not know who the client is and receive instructions to gather information on and/or nobble opposing bids and bidders. The team is managed by Rupert Keel (Stephen Dillane) who is the only one who has contact with the client and does not get personally involved in day to day operations. He is a shadowy, ruthless and amoral individual, a description which also applies to most of his team. The day to day operations are managed by team leader, Deacon Crane (Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje). His established team members include Sam Hunter (Melissa George), Aidan Marsh (Adam Rayner), Zoe Morgan (Morven Christie) & Hasan Moussa (Uriel Emil Pollack). They are joined early in the season by new team member and ex-special forces soldier, Ian Fowkes (Lex Shrapnel, actually his real name). This team carries out the operations to achieve the aims of their client including murder, kidnapping, torture, illegal surveillance, bombings and much more.

    The season starts with an operation going somewhat wrong and Sam Hunter being targeted for assassination and badly injured, seemingly set up by one of her team. She disappears to recover and is presumed dead by Keel and the team. One year later, she turns up and asks for her old job back, which they give her despite not really believing they can trust her because of the way she disappeared. She, of course, has her own agenda wanting to know who set her up and who wants her dead.

    In order to advance their client's aims the team start to infiltrate the organisation of London based gangster, Jack Turner (Patrick Malahide). One method they use is to stage a kidnapping of Turner's grandson, Eddie (Oscar Kennedy) and then have him "rescued" by a passing young American woman (who is actually Sam Hunter). This allows them to get Sam inside the house where Turner lives with his widowed son, Stephen (Stephen Campbell Moore), Eddie & his live-in enforcer, Bingham (Tom Beard). The team must try to work out if anyone is betraying them, stop rivals bidders winning the tender, hold the nosy MI6 operative, Natalie Thorpe (Indira Varma) at bay and try to stay alive. This story plays out over 8 hour long episodes with many twists, turns and double crosses.

    Hunted is a good quality action/thriller series which after a slightly slow first episode draws you in and makes for compelling viewing. Interestingly, there are no obvious good guys and bad guys everyone is pretty amoral, although Ian Fowkes tries early on to keep his morals in-tact. The show does over complicate itself towards the end with a few too many sub-plots, however, generally speaking it is quite well written, certainly from a story perspective. The dialogue can be a bit ordinary at times. The acting is quite good, especially Malahide and Melissa George is quite believable in this action hero role. This is quite a violent series and features quite a few sex scenes so it is not for everyone.

    Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is good without being up to the best of DVD.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    The picture was quite clear and sharp throughout.The shadow detail was very good.

    The colour was good although the dull colour scheme of the show does not allow for great colour vibrancy.

    There was some motion blur and sometimes blocking during fast motion but these were generally minor.

    There are subtitles in English for the Hearing Impaired which are clear and easy to read, however, suffered from significant amounts of spelling and translation problems.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is good.

    This set contains English soundtracks in Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0. The surround option is worth having without being at the quality of a feature production

    Dialogue was somewhat hard to make out at times and the subtitles were useful throughout to ensure picking up the dialogue.

    The music was well suited to the program and did not stand out in a bad way.

    The surround speakers were used for some nice atmosphere and mild directional effects.

    The subwoofer was sued to support music and gunshots.

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Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu included music and motion.

Deleted Scenes (11:40)

    A decent quantity of deleted scenes however none of them added significantly to the story.

    This set is available in the UK in the same format and is available for pre-order in Region 1.There is a Blu-ray edition available both locally and in the UK.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is good.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall