The Hunters
The Hunters
| 02 February 1996 (USA)
The Hunters Trailers

A policeman from Stockholm come to Norrbotten in Sweden, to join his brother, now when their father is dead. While there he starts to work on a long-running case where reindeers have been poached and soon discovers that his brother is involved...

Reviews
GamerTab That was an excellent one.
ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.
MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant
Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
Red-Barracuda The story here is kicked off by reports of illegal slaughter of reindeer. Local police turn a blind eye to the culprits, so a Stockholm detective, who was originally from the area, returns home and investigates. Things get complicated when he discovers his younger brother is involved but worse than that, the poaching has escalated into murder.I had seen the sequel to this Swedish thriller recently, a film called False Trail which was made fifteen years after the first part. I am guessing that The Hunters is a fairly influential film, as it comes very early in the cycle of Nordic Noir movies which have become very popular over the course of the last decade or so. Like others in this bracket, this one derives a fair bit of its interest from its local flavour, in this case the chilly expanses of Lapland. Like False Trail, this one also presents a mystery which is resolved for the audience quite early on, leaving the tension to come from knowing who is dangerous and wondering how the central detective will resolve the case. For me personally, I would have preferred a mystery over the combination of thriller with family drama which both films essentially boil down to a large degree, with the detective character put in a compromised position where he has to weigh up his family loyalty over his wider role to society as a policeman, with the added complication of small town suspicion of city people ever present. I think both films are broadly similar in terms of quality, with neither being especially excellent. I thought they were more an example of a solid, if unremarkable, detective stories combined with family drama with a northern Swedish backdrop. Nothing wrong with any of that of course but I would say these are good films as opposed to the best Nordic Noir has to offer.
olov_svedjeland You will stay along for the entire duration of this film if you don't mind anxious and gory/graphic content. The film shows group mentality and behavior without hesitation. I heard about the film when a youtuber showed a 3 second long clip from it. I could tell from just the framing and acting that this felt real.I personally can't give it a high rating because of its anxiety inducing content. I'm all for suspense and graphic content if it's appropriate. But this s**t gives me anxiety. All the people and animals dying are innocent and all the perpetrators are so unsympathetic and intimidating that i feel helpless and like a bad human being for not being able to help anyone else. I like the crime aspect to this, the directing, the writing, the acting and that's from my own country. But the lack of heart in some of these characters, lack of redemption and justice and lack of strong arcs paints an unforgiving, cruel, non-rewarding, mean and sad world. Fudge this movie makes me feel bad when i think about it. It's so real at other times. If i were to improve The Hunters i'd end it differently. I'd make it so that Erik fights his brother. Perhaps gets an answer from him where Nana is. He then turns Leif in to the police (alt. feeds him to cannibal elks because i hate him). The others are charged with crimes (or faces some consequences). Others involved (the police, the criminal's partners) are changed somehow. As the ending is now you feel like his efforts are meaningless. The village/city hasn't changed other than disliking the criminals a bit. Not all people involved has faced proportional consequences. Leif kills himself which means he gets away with everything and gets what he wants once again. Now the film's message seems to be: don't go to northern Sweden, it's corrupt, everyone hates good people, nobody changes, nothing changes, everyone are pieces of s**t, the innocent suffer, the evil wins, etc. Could have been a fantastic movie.
chris The hunters is a steady and mostly enjoyable thriller. I liked some of the acting and I liked the sense of the setting as well. I thought Rolf Lassgard was solid as Erik and Jarmo Makinen was actually a standout in his villainous role. The story line on paper is good and I felt like it was heading in a direction that I really liked but as the film went on I ended up feeling a bit let down. I expected a darker and more brooding tone than was actually delivered. I felt that as it progressed parts of the storyline and acting started to delve into the unbelievable and as a result of this it detracted from the overall quality of the thriller. I feel like the tone wasn't serious enough to coincide with events in the film and at various stages in the film things started to veer towards the ridiculous. The villains were over exaggerated, which turned it from a credible murder story into a story line that escalated too quickly without real substance. Overall I felt a bit disappointed and underwhelmed.
Thomas Nielsen This movie is very believable and uncomfortably so. A small and peaceful society being shattered by some very violent deaths. Apparent random murders that they all could have committed. I couldn't help thinking of Jon Voigt in Deliverance, when following Erik Bäckström's fight, first for justice later for his own safety.This thriller is highly recommended, except if you live in a small and remote hunter's community :-). It feeds on the tradition born from the books of writers Wahlöö & Sjöwall 30 years ago.