Journalists, more specifically war correspondents, are popular antiheroes for movies, with their own history: The Year of Living Dangerously, The Killing Fields, and Salvador are among the most prominent. There's something irresistible about the jaded, smart, politically astute reporter fueled by righteous indignation and rage that is inherently dramatic, particularly when coupled with dirty deeds carried out in shadowy corners of the world. Mel Gibson made his first real acting mark internationally as cranky, hard drinking scribe Guy Hamilton, caught in Jakarta during the overthrow of Sukarno in the 1960s. Sam Waterston was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg covering Pol Pot's Year Zero. And James Woods shot to moderate fame as a down-and-out journo who chronicles the events in El Salvador in the 1980s. None of these men were traditionally heroic, and each has his vivid flaws, but the job got done.

The sometimes grizzled, sometimes burnt out, always honorable war reporter has become a kind of modern white-hatted gunslinger - only his weapon is the pen (or typewriter, or laptop). It's interesting to note that in this modern age of media conglomerates, concentrated interests, and "infotainment" that the glory days of the crusading reporter seem to be all in the past. With the influence of the fourth estate (apparently) dwindling, there haven't been many angry young men (usually men) exposing the evils of the world on screen lately. Good Night and Good Luck was more of a biopic, and other screen journalists are either amusing (Anchorman) or in more fluffy news areas (The Devil Wears Prada), if news is the core story at all.

In The Hunting Party, Richard Gere plays an amalgam of real-life journalists searching for a Bosnian war criminal. Simon Hunt and his trusty sidekick/cameraman Duck (Terrence Howard) separately head back to Bosnia a decade after an on-camera meltdown by Hunt (told in flashbacks) while he was on the front that stalled his brilliant career. Living in Bosnia and his life in tatters, Hunt pursues Duck and his new boss, glamorous television anchor Franklin Harris (James Brolin), when they shoot a puff piece review in the region. He follows the two in order to convince Duck to join him in the hunt for The Fox (Ljubomir Kerekes), a wanted mass murderer and a big story, if he can get it, that would be Hunt's ticket back to credibility. Along with a network executive, Hunt and Duck arouse the suspicions of the U.N. peacekeeping boss, who assumes they're actually C.I.A. And so the adventure begins.

Writer-director Richard Shepard (Ugly Betty) dives into dodgy waters with The Hunting Party. There is great potential here for brilliant black comedy or biting satire that unfortunately never really takes hold. It's hard to find the humor in the Balkan conflict, yet the film is, in flashes, highly entertaining. Whereas Eastern European filmmakers have mined the subject for the past several years, Shepard's position on the outside looking in brings a condescending, somewhat arrogant tone to the topic - and the way it plays out in the narrative. There is a superficial bent in its attempt to make a comment on the impotency of the UN and the West for its slow reactions regarding Bosnia. The result of that is a cynical, weary tone that eventually heads more toward melodrama than thought provocation before veering into by-the-numbers thriller territory.

Comparisons to Michael Winterbottom's docudrama Welcome to Sarajavo will be inevitable given the location, but that was a film that nailed the purist's drive and gallows humor in the job, and captured the frantic mess that was Sarajevo at the time. Shepard falls into a pattern of simplistic musings that don't come close to making a real point about either world politics or mass media. There are a lot of thematic threads in the film that don't get the kind of consideration and airplay they should.

The antihero has always been a tricky character to write and perform, and Simon Hunt is no exception. The qualities, or lack of them, that define Hunt are difficult ones to make compelling, and so Gere's strong performance comes as a bit of a surprise; it's one of his best in recent years. Gere plays Hunt as an adrenalin junkie that finds war an amusing challenge as opposed to a hideous calamity that impacts thousands. He's clearly having a great time with the conflicted material, but nonetheless finds solid footing amid some clichs about television and reality. It's far from perfect, but it outshines the underused Howard (Iron Man), and the sketchy, forgettable villain.

If nothing else, Shepard displays the same visual flair he did with his debut film, The Matador. And like that film, aesthetics go a long way to distracting viewers from the self-conscious wit that never lives up to its potential. And perhaps what is most unforgivable about The Hunting Party is Shepard's unwillingness to let the sharp insight and scathing statement that could be lurking beneath rise to the surface.

The Hunting Party opens in Hong Kong on May 29.

(HK Edition 05/28/2008 page4)