The Hunter
Olive Films | Release Date: January 4, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleRyan LattanzioMar 29, 2012
The plot is spare, but unsettling imagery elevates The Hunter to the level of pure cinema. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen HoldenJan 3, 2012
The clammy chill that pervades The Hunter, the fourth feature film by the Iranian director Rafi Pitts, seeps under your skin as you wait for its grim, taciturn protagonist to detonate. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertFeb 29, 2012
This is a parable about modern Iran, and like many recent Iranian films it leaves its meaning to the viewer. One of the wise decisions by Rafi Pitts, its writer, director and star, is to include no dialogue that ever actually states the politics of its hero. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayJan 4, 2012
Though The Hunter maintains the same even tone after it turns into a chase thriller, the look begins to resemble the work of William Friedkin and Walter Hill in its clean, elemental approach to action. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirJan 4, 2012
A lean, disturbing and beautifully photographed thriller from writer, director and actor Rafi Pitts, who was born in Tehran, educated in Britain and did his filmmaking apprenticeship in France, working for Jean-Luc Godard and Leos Carax. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonJan 3, 2012
Filmed during the months leading up to the 2009 presidential election in Iran, The Hunter still seethes with fury - and anticipates the blood that would spill after the vote. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid FearJan 3, 2012
By the time you realize how stealthy the film's critique has been, you've already fallen right into its trap. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJan 3, 2012
In The Hunter, writer-director Rafi Pitts manages an atmosphere of choked, ambiguous dread, somehow naturalistic and hallucinatory at once, that recalls nothing less than Godard's Alphaville. Read full review
63
New York PostV.A. MusettoJan 5, 2012
Cinematographer Mohammad Davudi's nighttime shots of jammed Tehran highways help convey the society's dehumanization. Scenes of a vast forest outside the city, where Ali releases tension by hunting, are powerful in their own, sparse way. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJan 5, 2012
His story, like the current release "A Separation," shows a glimpse inside Iran of everyday reversals of fortune, and how easy it is to get caught in the crosshairs of bureaucracy, bad judgment and bad luck. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 3, 2012
The whole film, in fact, which Pitts wrote and directed, lurks on the borders of the unspecified. That is the source of its cool, but also of its sullen capacity to annoy. Read full review
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