The Hunter (1980)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1980
Running Time	93:25
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Buzz Kulik
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Steve McQueen Eli Wallach Kathryn Harrold Levar Burton Ben Johnson
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Michel Legrand

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Danish German English Spanish French Italian Dutch Norwegian Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The Hunter stars Steve McQueen as Ralph 'Papa' Thorson. In what was his last film before he died in late 1980, he plays a modern day bounty-hunter who roams the countryside looking for bail-skipping fugitives. He really should have been born a hundred or so years before, as he is quite out of touch with the modern world. He can barely drive a car (a joke that is played upon way too much), is certainly not your romantic new-age guy and is having a supremely difficult time committing to his rather pregnant girlfriend, Dotty.

    There are essentially three plotlines on the go here. In between picking up various hoods, he finds he is dodging threats from a revenge-seeking crazed psycho whom he earlier put away. He also has problems with his girlfriend, who wants him to play more of a role in the coming birth of their child. The big problem is that none of these plotlines are given the time to develop or actually go anywhere. We learn nothing about the crazed killer, and the relationship between Thorson and his girlfriend just doesn't seem real. The script is rather poor in developing any of this story any further. The scenes where some action actually takes place are quite laughable with a really cheesy score and a cheap feel to the whole production. Watch the scene with a stolen car, a crop harvester, and a chase through a corn field to see what I mean - Hitchcock this most certainly isn't.

Video

    The video transfer is in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and features 16x9 enhancement. Considering the age and quality of the film itself, I was surprised by the quality of the transfer, which is far better than many I have seen.

    The transfer is quite sharp overall, with a decent level of detail present. Shadow detail is never compromised. Grain is very obvious and rather ordinary in the opening couple of minutes, but clears up pretty quickly and doesn't become too much of a nuisance. There is no low level noise.

    The colours are pretty much as expected for a film from the early 80s - muted and dull, with plenty of browns and the like. There are no problems such as oversaturation or chroma noise, other than skin-tones that on occasion take on a little extra redness.

    I noticed no MPEG artefacts. Film-to-video artefacts are limited to a few cases of aliasing that pop up on numerous occasions - see the worst example at 6:14 on the lines on a road. Film artefacts are present, though certainly not in the numbers I expected. This is quite a clean print overall in this regard.
   
    A decent array of subtitles are present. The English variety are more than acceptable.

    This is a single layered disc, so there is no layer change to worry about.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are five audio soundtracks on this disc. All are mono Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks encoded at 192 KB/s. The languages are English, German, Spanish, French, and Italian. I listened to the English track and verified the presence of the others. The audio is harsh, flat, and rather bland. It has very little dynamic range and actually became quite annoying to listen to at my normal review volume. Turn it down just a bit and you'll enjoy it a whole lot more.

    Dialogue is also quite harsh at times, with little dynamic range. ADR and Foley effects are quite poorly done at times and sound too obvious. There are no audio sync problems

    The score is credited to Michel Legrand. It is quite dated, with the action scenes in particular being rather tacky and filled with high frequency piano percussion that gets a little grating after a while.

    There is no surround or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Theatrical Trailer

    The trailer runs for 3:04 minutes and is presented in the same aspect ratio as the main film, 1:78.1. It is also 16x9 enhanced. The quality is not quite as good as the main film, but it is close. Not the greatest trailer ever, as it shows pretty much the whole film and nearly every key scene. Then again, I guess it saves you having to watch the whole film, which could be a good thing!

    The Region 4 and Region 1 disc are almost identical. The Region 1 disc only has an English soundtrack, missing out on the four other languages that are present on the Region 4 disc. Video and English audio quality appear to be identical. There is no reason to favour the Region 1 in this instance.

    The Hunter is an instantly forgettable film. The acting is second rate, as are most of the production values. Unfortunately though, they both outshine the script, which is truly awful and filled with contrived and laughable scenes.

    The video transfer is rather good for the quality of the film. It far exceeded anything I was expecting.

    The audio is mono only, and is harsh, tinny, flat, and really quite annoying when played at a high volume.

    The extra is limited to a trailer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall