The Huntsman

Despite its talented cast and source material, writer and director Kyle Kauwika Harris squanders an interesting premise with a transparent plot that fails to surprise with any of its predictable reveals.

Adapted from the 2022 novel THE HUNTSMAN by author Judith Sanders, this cinematic adaptation presents a plot that is easier to follow than a Saturday morning episode of SCOOBY-DOO. 

Shawn Ashmore plays ICU nurse Max who becomes obsessed with a coma patient Lincoln Raider (Garret Dillahunt) who is accused of murdering six women. Co-starring Elizabeth Mitchell as Lincoln's longsuffering wife, Max is drawn further in to a web of lies when he accepts an in-home therapy offer for Raider's convalescence after he abruptly wakes from a coma. 

Hot on the trail are two gregarious detectives who look like cardboard cut-outs from NYPD -- incongruously playing hotshot cops in the small, sleepy, rural New Hampshire setting. 

With twists and turns that almost insult an audience's intelligence -- THE HUNTSMAN is a long slog towards its inevitable ending that will do nothing on the backend for the book sales of Sanders' novel. Despite Ashmore, Mitchell and Dillahunt's solid performances, the film fails to thrill, surprise or register anything worth remembering. 

As a mystery thriller, THE HUNTSMAN is too long, too formulaic, and too predictable to truly entertain.