Director: Jonathan Mostow
Writer: John Brancato, Michael Ferris (Screenplay) Kevin Wignall (Novel)
Starring: Sam Worthington, Odeya Rush, Allen Leech, Veronica Echegui, Amy Landecker, Martin Compston
Plot: An assassin helps a young woman avenge the death of her family.
Tagline – It’s Just Business
Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Hunter’s Prayer starts when Metzger (Compston) breaks in a assassinates a family, leaving the daughter Ella (Rush) in the boarding school, where an assassin Lucas (Worthington) finds her to protect her from his former boss Richard Addison (Leech).
Lucas must convince Ella he wants to protect her, with the countless numbers of assassins coming their way trying to clear up the loose ends.
Thoughts on The Hunter’s Prayer
Characters & Performances – Lucas is the washed up former assassin that relies on drugs to get through the day, he finds himself looking to complete one more good deed by protecting Ella from his former employer, showing he will still have the skill set to disappear from the world and fight back when need to. Sam Worthington does bring this role to life, as the down and out assassin looking to do the right thing. Ella is the teenage girl in a boarding school, looking to escape whenever she can, she finds herself taken by Lucas after a group of people tried to kill her, she is thrown into a world she doesn’t know who to trust, making all the typical errors we see in these styles of film. Odeya Rush does well in her role, hitting the innocent victim role. Richard Addison is the successful businessman that has a been working in illegal operations including hiring assassins. He wants to clean up the loose ends which means having Ella killed and he isn’t prepared to let his former employee get in his way. Allen Leech does give us the sleezy businessman figure that is always looking down on everyone with ease. In the supporting characters we mostly meet the different characters from the criminal world, each offering a different fight for Lucas.
Story – The story here follows a washed up assassin that looks to help a teenage girl that has become the latest target of his boss, putting him against the people he has been fighting for to try and save the innocent one involved. This is a story that we have seen many times before, it is an easy to make story, one that will give us plenty of action-based entertainment, while trying to hold back the biggest secret to his motivation for being involved. While it is one style of story we have seen before, it doesn’t try anything to try and make itself any different to anything we have seen before, it feel very safe in what it is telling.
Themes – The Hunter’s Prayer is a by the book action film, with plenty of gun battles usually in tighter areas, a few fights, but the gun fire is the most important part of this assassin’s world, which will take us across Europe for everything to unfold in.
The Hunter’s Prayer is a by the book action movie that will keep everyone entertained throughout.
