Killing Season

2013 "The purest form of war is one on one."
5.4| 1h31m| R| en
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Two veterans of the Bosnian War, one American, one Serbian, clash in the remote Smoky Mountain wilderness.

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Nu Image

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Reviews

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
drpavlovic1411 What's happening with the people when the grow old? Morgan Freeman is spitting at his great career going to Srebrenica and listening only one side, Muslim, and declaring Serbia (which has nothing with it) as the genocide country. And, what is more interesting, de Niro, who was in Serbia, who was fed and welcomed here when he was young, by Serbian people, who loves Novak Djokovic, made this anti Serbian movie???? INCREDIBLE. Hollywood is really consistent. Serbs must be the bad guys and that is it. Nothing will change forever. 1. It is so interesting how Hollywood is IGNORANT. Does anyone there has one brain cell? The main, Serbian character has named EMIL KOVAC. So stupid. Emil is a MUSLIM name. KOVAC is a Croatian surname. And the beard he wore (John Travolta) is not Serbian style, it is more Muslim extremists one, that people are called WAHHABIST, the most fundamentalist current in Islam, they call it the origin of terrorism. Their members has that kind of beard without mustaches and they wear bermude (short pants). They still have their camps in Bosnia. And they are very active there. Of course, nobody cares about that future source of terrorism. Muslims are American pets. 2. How come that nobody asked WHAT THE US ARMY DID IN BOSNIA? As far as I know, America wasn't a part of the war??? How come that they fought at the side of MUSLIMS??? Even if they were part of the peace corp (which is NOT THE CASE), they didn't have a mandate to fight Serbs. And, in the film, they EXECUTE Serbian 'war criminals', they shoot them in the head, while they are kneeling in front of them? WHAT? So, this is the confession and proof that the USA WERE ON THE SIDE OF MUSLIMS. British general Rose, who was a peace core member, says that British SAS units (??? what did they do in Bosnia???) killed some Serbian patrol in 5 seconds. And he was bragging how he fought Serbs, instead to keep peace and be objective, not to fight any side. 3. I am really tired of accusations that Serbs killed other nations, and that other nation were just victims. There are war crimes at ALL SIDES. But Hollywood and the West sees only Serbian crimes. How come it doesn't remember that Mujahedins, the member of 'El Mujahedin', cut Serbian heads by swords?? That Muslims had so many camps for Serbs? That even so poor citizens of Srebrenica killed many Serbs in that Srebrenica and the other villages near Srebrenica and they were Serbs? And nobody was convicted for that? Hello! Did you hear this Mr. Morgan Freeman? Movie is dull. Movie is full of unnecessary violence, and they take turns who will held bigger gun and had the power over the other one. CConclusion. LIVE US ALONE! Serbs are not the only one who made war crimes, jerks! LIVE US ALONE. And you ask us why we love Russian? That's why. They consider us as a normal people. Not as the animals.
Andrew Gold I was expecting to despise this movie. I only watched it because I was in the mood to see a bad De Niro movie, so the one where he's opposite Travolta playing a Serbian seemed to fit the criteria perfectly. But I was actually on board for the first 15 or so minutes of Killing Season. De Niro's character is off in a cabin isolated from his family and still recovering from the effects the Bosnian war had on him however many years ago, and Travolta's character is out for vengeance because he was left for dead in the same war on the opposing side. It's a simple enough premise. And there's one interesting scene where De Niro and Travolta are drinking and sharing war stories where you actually feel some tension but mutual respect building between them. Kind of like Pacino and De Niro in Heat (a blasphemous comparison but it's the first thing that came to mind). Anyway, I wanted more of that. But as soon as that's over, the movie turns into a cat-and-mouse game between the two of them that consists of one of them getting captured and tortured, then they somehow escape and the chase continues until the other guy gets captured and tortured, then they somehow escape and the cycle continues. It's just dumb and predictable. And let's talk about the accents for a minute. Travolta doesn't even have a bad accent. Mind you I don't know how authentic of a Serbian accent it is, but the accent itself is convincing enough. The problem is that he uses the same intonation for everything he says. At one point he's literally shot in the f*cking face and the next minute he's talking in exactly the same tone as before. And De Niro does this southern accent that drifts in and out, and you can tell he's just there for a paycheck because he's not even trying to pull it off convincingly. Hell it was more believable in Machete. And the special effects, holy god they're awful. They'll randomly cut to a close up of a wound and it just looks terrible. It's gratuitous, and I don't mind gratuity all that much but when you can clearly tell something is CGI, there's no excuse for that to make it in the final cut. It's unnecessary, it looks like crap, get it out of there.So yeah, I ended up disliking the movie but not for the reasons I was expecting. Travolta's accent wasn't the worst part of the movie like I thought it'd be. The story was quite interesting but it gets resolved in the most half-assed way, like there's absolutely no pathos when there so easily could have been seeing as how it's about two opposing war vets encountering each other after all this time. I mean, it's not a terrible movie. It really isn't. De Niro has had much worse, so has Travolta. But there are glimpses of potential all over this movie that get squandered in the dumbest possible ways, and that itself makes Killing Season a frustrating watch.
Sam Figura John Travolta played a Russian war veteran, and he had the best Russian accent I have ever heard. I honestly did not expect him to have such a strong accent, but it was done very well. Robert also played a really emotional role, and I feel he did very well under the given circumstances. I was impressed with the acting, and I was impressed seeing two movie legends battle it out. Overall, I gave the movie a 7 out of 10 because I feel some moments could have been better. I feel a few moments he could have killed him, and he should have. But overall, the acting was very good. I just feel it should have had a more realistic element to it.
davideo-2 STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Morning *** Friday Night ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningBenjamin Ford (Robert De Niro) was a US foot solider who served on the ground in the Bosnian war in the '90's, but who now lives a quiet, isolated existence in the mountains. However, one man, Emil Kovac (John Travolta), a Serbian man Ford was meant to have killed, cannot forgive and forget and has hunted him down to his mountain retreat. Initially friendly, Kovac soon has Ford locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse."De Niro and Travolta, on screen for the first time ever", the publicity on the cover for this film proudly booms. That would be a small screen, however, in this neck of the woods anyway, as Killing Season arrived straight to DVD over here, which sort of sets the bells of doom ringing well beforehand. It's still an interesting pair up, though, but it's quite clear this isn't going to have the sort of quality it would have had if it had came out maybe twenty years ago. It actually opens quite well, after the opening shaky camera battle sequence, establishing an atmospheric tension before the lead paths have even crossed, but somehow when they do, all the components of the machine fall apart, and it just descends on a downward spiral.De Niro tries to inject his role with some dynamism and gravitas, but you can never shake the feeling that it's another one of his 'pay cheque' roles. Travolta, never the most naturalistic actor, here has a dodgy Croatian accent to carry, along with a silly mountie beard. It's a curious pairing, that doesn't work due to the writing they have to contend with, including an unconvincing meeting, an initial bonding that does nothing to establish any menace or sense of unease, and an unexpectedly reflective and gentle ending that shakes it all up. After all this, you might think the ending would be the best bit, and it is, but in a good way, with some beautiful cinematography of the mountains and a nice, gentle song to go with it. It's another real time thriller, meaning it's at least a short affair, but that just shows what a shame it is. **