Killing Season

Over the years, i have been asked, what is one of your favourite action drama movies of all time ? I always seem to answer First Blood, from 1982. This was actually one of Sylvester Stallone´s best performances ever at that period of time, and is still a classic today. The image of a Vietnam veteran coming home and being treated like shit, just like he was treated in Vietnam, made an impact on many people in this motion picture. I have to be honest and say, i did not hear about Killing Season after the premiere, because this motion picture bombed at the box office. You would think that with 2 Hollywood stars like Robert de Niro and John Travolta, people might want to see them together on screen. Either way, i finally got a chance to see Killing Season, but the question is, is the audience and movie critics wrong, or is this motion picture a waste of your time ?

Belgrad, Serbia. Former Scorpions soldier Emil Kovač ( John Travolta ), meets his imformant to agree to a new mission. He is told to locate former NATO operative Colonel Benjamin Ford ( Robert De Niro ), and kill him. Benjamin is retired and lives in a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains. While Bejamin is driving through the woods one day, he meets Emil walking in the rain. As a friendly man, he offers him a lift, as he finds out Emil have no place to go too. Benjamin offer him to come along to his cabin. What starts out great, talking about war memories, is about to change into a deadly fight, where only one can survive.

I am very dissapointed. With 2 such great actors, who does not much at all infront of the screen, you begin to wonder why they said yes to be a part of these characters. You can tell the story have elements from First Blood, without copying the same story. But this is no classic, this is boring and uninspired film making. The biggest problem of all ? John Travolta as an serbian soldier. Listen how he tries to sound serbian, and you will understand what i mean. The only positive side is Robert De Niro, even if he is not very good here, at least he tries to do something about his character. Some of the action sequences are not very effective, but at least you can have a good laugh about seeing De Niro and Travolta fight in the forest. I am close to give this only one D, but De Niro saves this motion picture from being a disaster. Director Mark Steven Johnson directed both Daredevil and the first Ghost Rider movie, so you would at least think he could do something different this time, with a complete different genre. But no, he really needs to think about working harder on his vision, or i wont be interested in his future projects.

Rating: DD