Set primarily in the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest, The Hunted depicts the manhunt for renegade Special Operations operative Aaron Hallam (Del Toro). Haunted by the violence and genocide he witnessed in war-torn Kosovo, Hallam has gone off the proverbial deep end and disappeared into the wilderness, where he ritualistically slaughters two deer hunters whom he believes to be military "sweepers" after him. To find Hallam before he kills again, the FBI turns to L.T. Bonham (Jones), a veteran tracker and warfare instructor who taught Hallam years ago. Now working for the World Wildlife Fund in remote British Columbia, Bonham reluctantly agrees to go after his former pupil. Skilled in the art of tracking, camouflage and hand-to-hand combat, Hallam proves himself a formidable adversary for Bonham, who follows his elusive quarry from the rain-drenched forests to the overcast streets of Portland.

Whatever impact The Hunted makes is due primarily to the solid performances of Jones and Del Toro. They supply a much-needed emotional heft to the underdeveloped narrative, which draws a heavy-handed parallel between their relationship and the Biblical story of Abraham and his son Isaac. This blatant symbolism feels tacked on, rather than integral to The Hunted. The action sequences are proficiently directed and thankfully devoid of CGI gimmickry. One of the film's highlights is a car chase through the streets of Portland that offers a novel solution to the headache of gridlock (Don't try this at home, kids).

While effective, this car chase pales in comparison to the classic sequence in Friedkin's Oscar-winning crime drama, The French Connection (1971). In the early '70s, Friedkin briefly sat atop the Hollywood totem pole, thanks to the back-to-back hits of The French Connection and The Exorcist (1973). Critical and commercial blockbusters, these films gave Friedkin carte blanche with the studios. Unfortunately, like his fellow '70s-era wunderkind Peter Bogdanovich, Friedkin then succumbed to delusions of artistic grandeur and proclaimed himself an "auteur." For his follow-up to The Exorcist, Friedkin chose to remake the classic French suspense thriller The Wages of Fear (1952) as Sorceror (1977), a critical and commercial dud. Nor did Friedkin fare well with his next film, the ultra-controversial and violent gay-themed serial-killer film Cruising (1980). His glory days apparently behind him, Friedkin has continued to work steadily, if without distinction, throughout the '80s and '90s, grinding out such potboilers as The Guardian (1990) and Jade (1995). Over the last thirty years, Friedkin has only made one film that approaches the level of his early '70s work: To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), starring Willem Dafoe and William Petersen.

The Pacific Northwest has provided an atmospheric backdrop for other thrillers besides The Hunted. Sylvester Stallone unleashed Rambo on an unsuspecting audience in 1982's First Blood, a relatively gripping action film that launched a cartoonish franchise. 1988's Shoot to Kill stars Sidney Poitier as a veteran FBI agent who teams with a tracker (Tom Berenger) to find an escaped serial killer in the wilderness. Also noteworthy is 1997's The Edge from a script by David Mamet. Anthony Hopkins stars as a billionaire stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with his young wife's lover (Alec Baldwin).

Aside from the four short documentaries about the film's genesis and production, special features on The Hunted's DVD include deleted scenes and Friedkin's commentary. The director explains at length (some might say, ad nauseum) how his friendship with Tom Brown, the real-life inspiration for Jones's character, led him to make The Hunted. He also spouts off about politics, the military (he's pro-Special Ops, in case you were wondering), and how he took great pains to insure the film's authenticity. Maybe Friedkin should have spent more time fleshing out the screenplay than learning how to make knives from flint.