Killing Season

As if a Balkan high school student, obsessed with the first Rambo, had fulfilled his dream and cast two Hollywood stars in his own, ultra-serious interpretation of the shadows of his country’s history. The result is a dramaturgically primitive, technically impossible and often unwittingly ridiculous film with the original message that war is bad. Pure B-movie material. (06/30/2013)

Since Robert De Niro and John Travolta are actors of the first degree for me, I didn't hesitate for long and tried the film out. The plot could be about a classic chase between hunter and prey. The beginning starts with a drinking session, where Robert and John share a bottle of Jägermeister to figure out who is who, and the game can begin. In the second half of the film, they chase each other through the Appalachian Mountains (or rather Bulgaria), and if some Indian (or Bulgarian) saw them there, they would probably roll their eyes and walk in the opposite direction. There is some darkness, nonsense, and silliness here and there, but in the end, I enjoyed the enthusiasm of both actors to shoot each other, so I gave them a weaker three-star rating. (04/13/2021)

A small chamber survival movie like Rambo, Seraphim Falls, or The Hunted. Unfortunately, it also takes the worst the last one, a dumb and unbelievable probe into the war in Bosnia, from which the whole script draws and where the supposed conceptual transcendence should be visible, but simply isn't. If it was purely about raw survival, it would be one better, because both De Niro and Travolta are great. (08/17/2014)

A decent film - fast, clear, it says what it wants to say (and the result probably surprises no one), and that's all there is to it. Not that I need more. The most interesting thing for me is that I hadn't liked anything by Mark Steven Johnson, and suddenly there's Killing Season, which had me interested from start to finish. Of course, it's a credit to the two main actors, but the direction also has more than just good moments (De Niro's morning routine accompanied by Johnny Cash, then the scene with the wine or the one with the salted lemon juice), and it all takes place in the beautiful countryside, which is also a bonus. If Travolta's character hadn't acted like a complete jerk at the end, it might have been even better. (07/12/2014)