The best thing about Killing Season is the two legends that star in it. Robert De Niro and John Travolta, who play Bosnian War veterans, are alone (together) in the woods for most of it with nothing, besides a somewhat endearing scene involving an elk, to distract from their beaming star power. It’s a shame their rivalry couldn’t play out in a more fitting movie.

Though it gets better than the cliché battle flick the flashback prelude suggests it’s going to be, the plot is too contrived for its own good. There are solemn undertones dealing with death and life; the final scene hammers that latter message home; but the story, with all its unlikely happenstances, plays out more like a cartoon than something to be taken seriously.

my rating : 3 of 5

2013