Movies
It was Halloween night, 1980. I and my pals were on the verge of adulthood, ready to kick the world in the balls. Little did I know that the world had its own lumps waiting for me. I was 19 years old. There's no time like that, is there? Every potential, every possibility, is open and the future is pregnant with opportunities.

We had a plan: Hit the 9:00 showing of the brand new Steve McQueen flick, then the Midnight showing of Night of the Living Dead. If that wasn't enough, we were going to the woods after the show and spend the night in a fort that we had built a while back.

Still young enough to have had a fort in the woods, but an adult too. A special, magical time of anyone's life when both worlds are open. Comfortable youth and tantalizing adulthood.

But Steve McQueen's life was almost over.

I came of age in the time when James Dean was considered a crybaby wimpola. Steve McQueen...now he was The Man. He could drive better than just about anyone and he always kept his cool, even in the most dangerous situations.

The Hunter was McQueen's last film. He had been developing cancer and after having surgery for it, his heart gave out.

The Hunter isn't Steve McQueen's best movie, but it's far from a bad one. It never really hit it big with the majority of his fans who were uncomfortable with their hero being a crappy driver in it, or a rather bumbling antihero. The Hunter is the kind of movie that makes pinheaded critics say asinine things like, "This film doesn't know whether it's a serious action film or a comedy". Why can't movies be both?, I've always wondered.

Steve McQueen plays Ralph "Papa" Thorson, in The Hunter. The film was adapted from a Donald Westlake novel, but the character was based on a real person. Papa Thorson was the last of the old bounty hunters and he reportedly led a colorful life. It's funny that McQueen, who had a bad-boy reputation in Hollywood, actually skipped out on bail once in Alaska for drunken driving.

The Hunter is, as I said earlier, an amusing picture. The first half is basically a series of vignettes focusing on the lovably goofy bounty hunter Thorson. McQueen is excellent in it, even though he must have been in physical discomfort during the shooting. As the film progresses, it gradually turns into a tense psycho killer tale as a former case of Thorson's comes back to exact revenge. It reminded me a bit of Dirty Harry, which is also ironic, because Steve McQueen was originally offered the role that made Clint Eastwood a superstar.

This film was lensed at the tail end of the 70's and it's one of the last gasps of the type of film that decade is celebrated for. Veteran TV director Buzz Kulick (Bad Ronald, Brian's Song) gave the film a realistic look and while it's funny, the movie is never foolish or ridiculous. It's a fitting capstone to a great career of a great icon of American cinema.

But I gotta tell you...Seeing Night of the Living Dead up on the big screen for the first time had a greater impact on me. Not to mention stumbling around in the woods searching for that fort in the pitch dark, still half-scared from the movie. I became a bigger fan of horror than action films, but I still love a good solid suspense picture and The Hunter is a prime example of what works well in that genre.

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