Bullet Points: The Hunter’s Prayer

When Avatar hit theaters in 2009 people were losing their ever loving minds. Avatar was being dubbed by some as the next Star Wars. I felt that was a ludicrous statement then and it seems even more ludicrous now.

Front and center of the Avatar hype storm was the star of the movie Sam Worthington. If people thought Avatar was the next Star Wars, then they were probably thinking Sam Worthington was the next Harrison Ford.

But while Ford followed up Star Wars with classic movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, Air Force One, The Fugitive and Patriot Games, Worthington followed up his star making performance in Avatar with the lead role in the Clash of the Titans remake, the sequel nobody asked for Wrath of the Titans and a forgettable entry in the Terminator franchise. Talk about killing your momentum.

Sam Worthington continues to work as he waits for the 75 yet to be released Avatar sequels to hit theaters. One of the movies he did to keep busy is the subject of this edition of Bullet Points, 2017’s The Hunter’s Prayer.

• The Hero: Sam Worthington plays our troubled hero Lucas. Lucas is an assassin for hire. Lucas learned to kill in the military, having served in Fallujah where he saw and often had to do unspeakable things. Lucas is also a drug addict who finds himself estranged from his wife and daughter. Lucas is hired by wealthy UK businessman Richard Addison to kill a young girl named Ella Hatto (Odeya Rush). Ella’s father Martin was one of Addison’s attorneys and when Martin learned that some of Addison’s fortune was actually drug money he started embezzling money in the sum of 25 million dollars and hiding it in the Swiss bank account he had set up for Ella who was away at boarding school in Switzerland. When Addison discovers that Martin is stealing from him he wants to send a message to Martin and all the other people who work for him a clear message… don’t cross the boss! Killing Martin’s only daughter would certainly send that message… one problem though, Lucas can’t bring himself to do it.

• The Villain: As you may have gathered Richard Addison (Allen Leech) is a cold and calculating individual. An impatient Addison frustrated with Lucas’ lack of progress, sends another of his hitmen for hire Metzger (Martin Compston) to the home of Martin Hatto in Scarsdale, where he kills Martin, his new wife and the housekeeper and starts a fire in their house before he leaves. But even with Martin dead, Addison still wants Ella killed and since Lucas refused to kill Ella, he wants Lucas dead too. In addition to his army of assassins, Addison also has a dirty FBI agent Gina Banks on his payroll (she’s the one who tipped him off about Martin Hatto’s embezzlement but initially she does not know where the money was being funneled to). So he has more than enough resources to make sure Ella and Lucas end up dead. If all of this isn’t enough for you to dislike Addison, he also treats his young son like crap… expecting absolute perfection in everything his son does and not allowing the boy to speak to his own mother.

• The Action: The Hunter’s Prayer is an action thriller with equal parts action and thriller. The action really gets started after Ella sneaks out of boarding school to meet up with her boyfriend at a dance club, it is there that Lucas prevents an attempt on Ella’s life as the bullets start flying. Lucas gets Ella out of the club and convinces the confused and scared Ella to get in his car starting their tenuous relationship. This leads to a pretty intense car chase sequence as Lucas tries to navigate away from the danger. The longer they are on the run through out Europe dodging assassin’s bullets, the more Ella learns about Lucas and the truth about what happened to her father and the man who orchestrated her father’s demise. At one point after they make their way to jolly old England, Ella flips the script and tries to hire Lucas to kill Addison for her, but Lucas, who at this point is going through major withdrawals as he stopped shooting up, refuses and warns Ella of the price a person pays when they are responsible for taking another person’s life. With Lucas in no condition to stop her, Ella takes his gun and goes to Addison’s high rise office building and attempts to shoot Addison herself. Ella can’t go through with it and she gets herself arrested. At this point, Gina Banks (Amy Landecker) has learned where Martin Hatto was stashing the money, so Richard Addison drops the charges against Ella and Agent Banks is conveniently there to take Ella into protective custody. In actuality, Banks is trying to get Ella to sign documents that would give Addison access to the Swiss bank account where his 25 million dollars is now residing. Ella smells a rat and ends up locked in the basement of Addison’s castle like home… setting up for our flawed hero to fully redeem himself during his final showdown with Richard Addison.

The Hunter’s Prayer was a conglomeration of action thriller elements that you have likely seen in the past decade. At times it felt like Taken, at times it felt like The Equalizer but at no time did it seem as good as either of those films. That’s not to say that The Hunter’s Prayer was a bad film, just not one I’d suggest going out of your way to watch. The Hunter’s Prayer was simply average at best. And Sam Worthington’s performance in The Hunter’s Prayer could also be described as average at best.

The law of averages is on your side if you were hoping for some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Directed By: Jonathan Mostow directed The Hunter’s Prayer. Mostow also directed U-571 and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, another forgettable entry in the Terminator franchise.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Sam Worthington kill a guy by backing over him with a car then this is the movie for you.
• Dog Gone It: At one point Lucas shares a story about having to slit a dog’s throat while he served in Fallujah… I was waiting for a Sarah McLachlan song and/or voice over to accompany this sad tale of animal cruelty.
• Thanks Wikipedia: Do you ever wonder why people in movies have Swiss bank accounts? What makes them so special? This explanation courtesy of Wikipedia should explain it all… The Banking Law of 1934 made it a criminal act for a Swiss bank to reveal the name of an account holder. Swiss bank secrecy protects the privacy of bank clients; the protections afforded under Swiss law are similar to confidentiality protections between doctors and patients or lawyers and their clients.