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Even though their collective star power has dimmed a bit in the last few years thanks to some ill-advised screenplay choices, one might rightly assume that a movie co-starring Robert De Niro and John Travolta would be considered a reasonably big deal. However, the new war drama "Killing Season," in which they appear together for the first time, was only dribbled out into a handful of theaters, presumably a contractual obligation connected to its upcoming home video release. Considering that the two stars have, to put it charitably, made more than their fair share of terrible movies over the last few years, one might wonder how bad a film with them would have to be to get swept under the rug so completely. As it turns out, the film is quite awful—badly written, ineptly staged, horribly acted, historically suspect and boring beyond belief—and fully deserving of its ignominious fate.

Benjamin Ford (De Niro) is a career soldier who is now spending his retirement in virtual isolation in his cabin in the woods, where he takes nature photos, listens to Johnny Cash albums and struggles to forget the horrors that he experienced while in the field. One day, he suffers car trouble and is aided by Emil Kovac (Travolta), a Bosnian who is in his neck of the woods on a hunting expedition. When a rainstorm erupts, Ford invites Kovac for dinner and, after bonding over booze and the Man in Black, Kovac reciprocates by inviting Ford to go on his hunt with him the next day.

The next day, they go out but Ford quickly discovers that the prey Kovac really has in mind is not an elk but him. It turns out that Kovac is really a Serbian war criminal who was captured and supposedly executed by Ford and his fellow NATO troops after they liberated a Bosnian internment camp that he was helping to run. Having survived the bullet Ford put in his back, Kovac has finally tracked him down and now wants to go after him in a fair fight in order to get revenge and exorcise his demons about the conflict.

In the right hands, this could have resulted in a smart, complex and tough-minded film combining gripping action and a meditation on man's eternal desire for conflict and how the physical and psychic wounds of those who partake in war continue to fester long after the cessation of hostilities. Instead, the film quickly devolves into a grotesquely violent and generally idiotic revenge film in which one of the two gets the upper hand on the other, tortures him for a few minutes in an exceptionally gruesome or silly manner (including waterboarding with a pitcher of lemonade made with salt instead of sugar) until he makes a stupid mistake that lets the other escape and take his turn. Imagine a cross between the old "Spy vs. Spy" feature in Mad Magazine and the lesser " Saw " movies and you can get an idea of what the end result is like.

The biggest mystery about "Killing Season" is that, despite its lack of real dramatic conflict or any particular insights on the horrors of the Serbian-Bosnian conflict (the latter is perhaps not that much of a surprise seeing as how Evan Daughtrey's screenplay apparently was originally written about WW II participants), it still managed to attract actors of the caliber of De Niro and Travolta to take on roles that might otherwise have been filled by the likes of Nicolas Cage and…okay, Nicolas Cage again in an exceptionally odd double role. As he has done so many times in recent years, De Niro coasts through his part with just enough dramatic exertions to ensure that he receives his paycheck—not even an arrow shot through his leg is enough to inspire much of a reaction out of him. He makes so little of an impression that one could almost forget that he was in the film and my guess is that he would have no problem with that.

If De Niro hardly makes any effort at all, Travolta fully and completely commits to his performance, a move that would be laudable if it were not for the fact that the end results are so laughably bad. He is trying to come across as both charming and monstrous but is unable to pull off such a tricky tightrope act. Matters are not helped by the hilariously unconvincing Serbian accent that he deploys so insistently and ineptly throughout. To make things worse, Travolta has also been outfitted with the kind of goofy facial hair that makes one long for the comparatively slick grooming that he displayed in " Battlefield Earth ." How bad is it? At one point—don't ask how—he gets an arrow shot through his face and most viewers would consider it a marked improvement.

In the end, "Killing Season" may not be the worst movie that either De Niro or Travolta has ever done—compared to the truly execrable likes of " The Big Wedding ," it will not even go down as the worst De Niro film of 2013—but that does not make it any less awful. Cheaply made, dramatically inept and staggeringly dull despite a running time that only clocks in at maybe 80 minutes tops before the end credits begin, it is so devoid of passion, energy and intelligence that it makes one wonder why those responsible even bothered to make it in the first place. Unless you are a De Niro or Travolta completist, there is no reason to waste any time and money on this one. If you are a completist, you would be better served staying at home to watch the likes of "Righteous Kill" or "Moment by Moment" instead.

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

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Killing Season (2013)

Robert De Niro as Benjamin Ford

John Travolta as Emil Kovac

Milo Ventimiglia as Chris Ford

Elizabeth Olin as Sarah Ford

Diana Lyubenova as Elena

• Mark Steven Johnson
• Evan Daugherty

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Killing Season Reviews

The result is not only ineffective but becomes a dramatically inert, overly violent embarrassment for both De Niro and Travolta.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Sep 1, 2022

Initially a contender for one of those so-bad-it's-good exercises, Killing Season creakily turns into another underdeveloped idea that doesn't have enough going for it to remain of interest.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2019

It wants to be a war-is-Hell 'coming home' story, but it ends up playing like a cheap action flick starring two men who are obviously too old to be running through the woods beating the living crap out of each other.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 30, 2013

Comes full up with heavy-handed signifiers, from Ben's choice of reading (Hemingway...) to a hammered motif of lapsed Christianity (the climax takes place in a rotting church) that underlines the theme of living with the sins of the past. [Blu-ray]

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 19, 2013

... establishes some mild tension but never generates any sort of meaningful insight into post-war trauma.

Full Review | Jul 22, 2013

Badly written, ineptly staged, horribly acted, historically suspect and boring beyond belief ...

Full Review | Original Score: 0.5/4 | Jul 17, 2013

Playing out like a brutally graphic Tom and Jerry skit at times, Killing Season lacks the atmospheric tension necessary to keep us consistently engaged.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jul 15, 2013

Derivative and bizarrely graphic, Killing Season is nothing more than another forgettable entry in two ongoing filmographies that desperately need more inspired professional choices.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Jul 14, 2013

Killing Season is competently put together, yet the woefully hollow dialogue and the predictable plot developments make for a pretty bland flick.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Jul 12, 2013

Horrormeister Eli Roth would get a charge out of the torture scenes.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 11, 2013

It's not worthless, but it's not good. As a genre film, it's too ambitious; as an art film, it's too obvious.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 11, 2013

Make no mistake, for all the deferred killing, this is still a bloody affair, one which takes a grotesque glee in arrows being shot through faces and impromptu torture sessions.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 11, 2013

The pretentious, preposterous, dueling-dialect flameout called "Killing Season" has to stand as one of the biggest missed opportunities in iconic matchups.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 11, 2013

If you've always wanted to see Robert De Niro forced to thread a steel rod through an open wound and then strung upside down by John Travolta, this is the movie for you.

Full Review | Original Score: 0.5/4 | Jul 11, 2013

Tables keep turning, traps keep springing and the actors keep acting, acting, acting.

The sight of Robert De Niro and John Travolta sharing the screen for the first time reps the one and only selling point of Killing Season.

Full Review | Jul 11, 2013

A drawn out cat-and-mouse game never catches fire.

"Killing Season" could have been made 20 years ago and looked the same. It's a time capsule to an era of humbler stupid movies.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 11, 2013

To put it mildly, neither of the leads has the physique for such a Darwinian showdown, and one of the frustrations of Killing Season is the way Evan Daugherty's screenplay demands near-invincibility.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jul 11, 2013

Calling this film a cat-and-mouse game would insult felines and rodents, both of which are much smarter than this movie.

Full Review | Jul 9, 2013

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Killing season.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 3 Reviews
• Kids Say 2 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Brutal violence and torture in forgettable revenge film.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Killing Season is a dark, mature thriller with war overtones that stars John Travolta and Robert De Niro. The main thrust is revenge, with various gruesome scenes of torture (often with blood/agony). Viewers also see some brutal, disturbing flashbacks to the Bosnian War. Language is…

Why Age 17+?

Some absolutely gruesome flashbacks to the Bosnian War, with piles of decomposin

Strong language includes "f--k" and "motherf----r," several uses of "s--t," plus

In the first part of the movie, the characters drink almost an entire bottle of

One character tells a joke with some strong sexual content (blow jobs, etc.) A v

Characters study a bottle of Jagermeister liquor (they note the various symbols

Any Positive Content?

The movie's main themes are revenge and torture, though both characters seem to

Both characters seem to have been forever damaged by war, either retreating into

Violence & Scariness

Some absolutely gruesome flashbacks to the Bosnian War, with piles of decomposing corpses, characters shot in the head at close range, and mentions of rape and burning bodies. One character is shot through the leg, with spurting, gurgling blood. He's then forced to push a metal stake through the hole, and he's hung by a rope from this wound. Another character is shot with an arrow through his face (his cheeks) and then tied up and tortured with salt and lemon juice. A character digs a piece of bloody shrapnel from his own leg and uses it to stab another man. Fighting with knives, a car crash, and various arguing and taunting.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes "f--k" and "motherf----r," several uses of "s--t," plus "goddamn," "damn." and "ass."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

In the first part of the movie, the characters drink almost an entire bottle of Jagermeister, getting fairly tipsy; this is presented very much as a social ritual.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

One character tells a joke with some strong sexual content (blow jobs, etc.) A voluptuous bartender shows some cleavage in a couple of scenes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Characters study a bottle of Jagermeister liquor (they note the various symbols on the label).

Positive Messages

The movie's main themes are revenge and torture, though both characters seem to be interested in "confessions" (either religious or just simply telling the truth), and once that happens, they seem to be satisfied, and revenge no longer matters. The message? Tell the truth! Ultimately, both characters seem ready to connect with other people once again.

Positive Role Models

Both characters seem to have been forever damaged by war, either retreating into isolation or concentrating solely on revenge. They both resort to gruesome violence. Though they eventually come out the other side, changed for the better, they aren't worth emulating or admiring.

Parents need to know that Killing Season is a dark, mature thriller with war overtones that stars John Travolta and Robert De Niro . The main thrust is revenge, with various gruesome scenes of torture (often with blood/agony). Viewers also see some brutal, disturbing flashbacks to the Bosnian War. Language is fairly strong, with a few, pointed uses of "f--k" and "s--t." The characters tell a joke with some strong sexual innuendo. A bottle of Jagermeister liquor is studied, admired, and consumed, and the characters get drunk. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (2)

Based on 3 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Benjamin Ford ( Robert De Niro ) survived a tour of the Bosnian War but has retreated to a cabin deep in the woods, living a simple existence, photographing animals, reading Hemingway, and going to bed early. Meanwhile, a Serb, Emil Kovac ( John Travolta ) -- who encountered Benjamin during the war -- has spent years looking for him and finally finds him. At first he seems friendly enough, sharing his Jagermeister and talking the night away. But the next morning, he's planned a deadly hunt with bows, arrows, and Benjamin as his prey. Fortunately, Benjamin isn't an easy quarry to catch, and soon each man is using every skill at his disposal to survive and defeat the other.

Is It Any Good?

To sum it up in one word, this movie just feels wrong . Director Mark Steven Johnson has so far made bad comedies ( When in Rome ), bad superhero movies ( Daredevil and Ghost Rider ), and a sentimental weepie ( Simon Birch ), and in KILLING SEASON he attempts a dramatic thriller with serious overtones of war and genocide. The main problem is that he doesn't seem to know how to mix ghoulish, superficial torture sequences with horrific war flashbacks. Oddly, the movie's best part comes when the two stars, Travolta and De Niro, are simply talking, before the hunt begins. Travolta, especially, is weirdly captivating with his thick Serbian accent and an odd, Abraham Lincoln-like beard. Both Travolta and De Niro have played psychopaths before, and they both know how to play this game; their relationship is believable. It's too bad their talent is so wasted in this puzzling, unpleasant movie.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Killing Season 's violence . Which parts were supposed to be thrilling, and which parts were supposed to be disturbing? Can the two goals co-exist? How does what you see here compare to horror movies?

Does revenge solve anything or lead to anything good? Do these characters get their revenge? What happens to them?

Why does Robert De Niro's character avoid his family? What would happen if he confided in them?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 12, 2013
• On DVD or streaming : August 20, 2013
• Cast : John Travolta , Milo Ventimiglia , Robert De Niro
• Director : Mark Steven Johnson
• Studio : Millennium Films
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 90 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong violence, some torture, and language including some sexual references
• Last updated : February 3, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Den of Geek

Killing Season, Review

It may be Killing Season for Robert De Niro and John Travolta, but with sharpshooters like these guys, the wildlife will flourish.

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2.5 out of 5

David Crow | @DCrowsNest

David Crow is the movies editor at Den of Geek. He has long been proud of his geek credentials. Raised on cinema classics that ranged from…

Karlovy Vary Film Review: ‘Killing Season’

Robert De Niro and John Travolta don't exactly shine in this cartoonishly violent drama about two troubled veterans of the Balkan wars.

By Alissa Simon

Alissa Simon

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The sight of  Robert De Niro and John Travolta sharing the screen for the first time reps the one and only selling point of “ Killing Season ,” a cartoonishly violent drama routinely helmed by Mark Steven Johnson (“Daredevil”). The actors play troubled vets of the Balkan wars — De Niro a U.S. colonel, Travolta a member of the infamous Serbian Scorpions — who find that a literal and metaphorical spilling of guts is just the thing to exorcise their war demons. Millennium Entertainment will hedge its bets for this gory, arrow-in-cheek actioner with a simultaneous theatrical and VOD release Stateside on July 12.

Given that offensiveness massively outweighs entertainment in this two-hander, replete with graphically and gleefully depicted torture, it seems odd that the project attracted two stars of this caliber. Perhaps to justify his choice of a darker role, Travolta has been gamely supporting the pic with pre-release personal appearances in a variety of prestige venues, although it’s far from typical festival fare.

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A quick prologue played under a pounding score capsulizes the genocide that took place in Bosnia in the 1990s, and implies that NATO forces carried out summary executions of newly captured Serbian war criminals after liberating an internment camp. Hoping to confront his would-be executioner is the loquacious Emil Kovacs (Travolta, sporting a hard-to-understand Eastern European accent, a shaved head and bizarre, unattractive facial hair), who was shot in the back by Col. Benjamin Ford (De Niro) and left for dead.

Popular on Variety

The tight-lipped Ford also bears physical and psychic wounds from his time in Bosnia; embittered and wracked with pain, he leaves a near-hermitlike existence and can’t get over his failed marriage. The only shooting he does these days is with his camera.

Clad in a pilgrim’s hood, carrying a staff and resembling a medieval-era Grim Reaper, Kovacs materializes one stormy night near Ford’s luxe cabin deep in the Appalachian mountains and gains entry by fixing the older man’s car. A slow, talky second-quarter setup establishes that the men share a taste for archery, Johnny Cash and Jagermeister. Gee, in another world they might have been friends.

The third quarter supplies ample doses of table-turning action and groan-inducing visual effects as Ford accompanies Kovacs on a hunting expedition, only to discover who’s meant to be the quarry . It’s the cinematic equivalent of those old “Spy vs. Spy” comicstrips in which two nearly identical antagonists use a variety of ruses and booby traps to inflict grievous bodily harm. Among the most gruesome assaults shown here are Ford being forced to insert a rope through his arrow-pierced calf, and a bound and bloody Kovacs essentially being waterboarded with a pitcher of salty lemonade.

Given the overall problems of tone, the pic’s erstwhile happy ending isn’t surprising even though it strikes one of many false notes here. Perhaps even Quentin Tarantino couldn’t have found the right tone for the screenplay’s mix of gratuitous violence and pretentious philosophizing about extenuating circumstances, confession and redemption.

The screenplay by Evan Daugherty (“Snow White and the Huntsman”), which was included on the 2008 Black List, originally was titled “ Shrapnel ,” was set in the 1970s, and centered around an American WWII vet with a piece of metal buried in his leg and a former Nazi officer; John McTiernan was attached to helm. Given the greater historical distance and the presence of a stronger director, that project may well have played better than what has made it to the screen.

Johnson seems more at ease capturing cliched shots of majestic nature than he is guiding his scenery-chewing leading players.  Moving with his trademark physical grace, Travolta offers a twinkly-eyed perf that undercuts his character’s rep as a cold-blooded killer. Although mostly registering as weary and exasperated, De Niro offers a few twinkles of his own in the over-the-top sequence that starts with him nailing Travolta’s profile to his front door with an arrow.

The glorious autumnal forests, fields, mountains and waterfalls of Georgia are shown to their best advantage. Tech credits are pro, despite Christopher Young’s grating, overinsistent score.

Reviewed at Karlovy Vary Film Festival (Special Event), June 29, 2013. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 90 MIN.

• Production: (Belgium-U.S.) A Millennium Entertainment (in U.S.) release of a Millennium Films, Corsan presentation of a Corsan, Nu Image production. Produced by Paul Breuls, Ed Cathell III. Executive producers, Avi Lerner, Danny Dimbort, Trevor Short, Boaz Davidson, John Thompson, Guy Tannahill. Co-executive producers, Linda Favila, Anson Downes. Co-producer, Veronique Huyghebaert. 
• Crew: Directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Screenplay, Evan Daugherty. Camera (Technicolor, HD), Peter Menzies Jr.; editor, Sean Albertson; music, Christopher Young; production designer, Kirk M. Petrucelli; art director, Thomas Minton; costume designer, Denise Wingate; visual effects supervisor, Evan Jacobs; stunt coordinator, Jeff Imada; sound (Dolby Digital); Petar Kralev, Adrian Rhodes.
• With: Robert De Niro, John Travolta. (English, Serbian dialogue)

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Review: ‘Killing Season’ has Robert De Niro, John Travolta, tedium

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The pretentious, preposterous, dueling-dialect flameout called “Killing Season” has to stand as one of the biggest missed opportunities in iconic matchups. Robert De Niro plays a loner American military vet whose Appalachian retreat for wood-chopping and elk-gazing is disturbed by John Travolta’s black-clad, chin-curtained Bosnian war criminal, a motormouth Serb bearing a bottle of Jagermeister, a bow and arrows, and a score-settling scenario.

Neither kills the other after repeated chances in screenwriter Evan Daugherty’s mano-a-mano set-up, however, because then we wouldn’t get long, tedious “we’re the same, you and I” war philosophizing, the side helpings of torture (salty lemonade waterboarding!) and the regrettable sight of great actors sporting uncomfortable accents. (Q: What do you get from listening to a New Yorker’s slapdash Southern drawl meet a glug-glug-glug Eastern European mutter? A: Sudden interest in the set decoration.)

“Killing Season” director Mark Steven Johnson acquits himself only by getting the most out of his woodsy locations, and bringing it all in at 91 minutes before we’re ready to swear off two-handers forever.

-------------------

“Killing Season”

MPAA rating: R for strong violence, some torture, and language including some sexual references.

Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes.

Playing: At AMC Rolling Hills 20.

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Home » Movie News » Review: Killing Season

Review: Killing Season

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

PLOT : When two Bosnian War veterans meet, they conveniently become friends. Yet once upon a time, the American and the Serbian were on opposite sides of the war. One decides to move on while the other has plans to finish what was started so many years ago. De Niro and Travolta end up shooting arrows and desperately trying to survive a war that doesn’t seem to have ended for either one.

REVIEW : It is hard to believe a ninety minute movie can feel as long as KILLING SEASON. Sure the John Travolta and Robert De Niro action drama attempts to inject a real sense of purpose in this tale of war and revenge but it simply falls into mediocrity. Watching the two actors spout long-winded monologues about hunting, war and confession oftentimes reaches the excitement level of a dramatic scene-study class. This is not to say that the two actors aren’t talented – clearly that is not the case – but the substance here feels forced without a real sense of honesty. Part of that may be Travolta’s extra thick helping of the ridiculous Russian accent or De Niro’s very own sometimes Southern dialect – it seemed to pop in and out during the course of the film.

The story focuses on the two men who are both Veterans of the Bosnian War. We know this by seeing a flashback of a group of Serbian soldiers captured and killed early on in 1992. Of course one of them is Emil Kovac (Travolta) in an all too silly reveal. This particular scene shouldn’t have generated a smile, but holy hell is it bad. We don’t get a glimpse however of Benjamin Ford (De Niro) but it’s pretty damn obvious he is there. Cut to present day where we find Ford is a nature photographer living in the woods – he was so traumatized that he won’t even go to his grandson’s baptism… Jerk! Of course danger is awaiting him as we find Kovac in a bar telling his buddy he is going hunting. As luck would have it, we soon find him lurking in the shadows watching Ford dealing with car trouble in a storm. Does he attempt to take revenge quickly? If only it had been, then we could have gotten this over with a whole lot faster.

During the course of KILLING SEASON we see a lot of discussion. The best part of the film is the not-so-subtle use of the terrific Johnny Cash song “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town.” This cat-and-mouse scenario rarely raises any tension aside from a couple of decent chase sequences. The same steps are taken at every turn. Converse, pretty nature shot, a little bloody torture and repeat, and so on and so on. When the action comes into play, it is simply hard to care about either of their situations. For all the back and forth dialogue between the two, it didn’t really shed any light on the two characters aside from the superficial story of angst-ridden Vets who’ve yet to come to terms with the terror they experienced. And when director Mark Steven Johnson revs up the action, it is hard to get past what clearly looks to be the use of stuntmen.

This script by Evan Daugherty (SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN and the upcoming DIVERGENT and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES) attempts to be more than just a simple action movie. And who knows, maybe at one time it was. The problem is that somewhere between art-house drivel and action flick lite, KILLING SEASON is just ponderous and dull. The obviousness was infuriating, whether it was Ford’s son (played by Milo Ventimiglia ) hinting that he might come to visit his father with the family and does or the constant mention of Ford’s bad leg, you can see exactly where it is all heading. Even the end feels a bit like a cop-out. The damage these two do to each other – including shooting arrows into cheeks or calves – it seems a miracle they could survive the torture they are put through. Of course, at times it was torture to sit through as well.

It is a shame that De Niro and Travolta couldn’t have made a better movie together. KILLING SEASON is competently put together, yet the woefully hollow dialogue and the predictable plot developments make for a pretty bland flick. If you can survive all that you still have to make it through the heavy-handed symbolism and Travolta’s grating accent. With all that time spent on Ford and Kovac it is nearly impossible to imagine that you wouldn’t want to root for one of these guys. But nope! Nothing! Nada! With funny accents, boring monologues and repetitive sequences, you might as well just sit in an acting class for an hour and get the same level of excitement – albeit this one has much better scenery which is a plus.

Killing Season

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JimmyO is one of JoBlo.com’s longest-tenured writers, with him reviewing movies and interviewing celebrities since 2007 as the site’s Los Angeles correspondent.

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Why ‘Killing Season’ Starring Robert De Niro and John Travolta Is the Summer’s Guiltiest Pleasure

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John Travolta, speaking in a leaden Bosnian accent, hurtles arrows at Southern war vet Robert De Niro while chasing him through the Appalachian woods. That’s the entire premise for “Killing Season,” an absurdly silly one-note thriller that’s ironically pretty entertaining on its own terms. In the heat of summer, the lightweight “Killing Season” also provides an ideal contrast to the lumbering tentpoles that have thundered into multiplexes during this particularly weak season. With its reliance on a pair of iconic stars, an original if fairly traditional story and violent showdowns without an iota of fancy effects work, “Killing Season” could have been made 20 years ago and looked the same. It’s a time capsule to an era of humbler stupid movies. 

There’s a history to its antiquated nature. Originally titled “Shrapnel,” set in the seventies and trading the backdrop of Bosnian war trauma for WWII, the movie was set to be directed by John McTiernan, the eighties action auteur best known for tightly directed survival tales “Die Hard” and “Predator.” Though not as refined, “Killing Season” hails from a similar tradition, its tension steeped in the dark backstories for both main characters as they continually attempt to outwit each other. 

Eventual “Killing Season” director Mark Steven Johnson ‘s other films don’t indicate a capacity for this kind of restraint — his previous credits include consciously over-the-top comic book adaptations “Ghost Rider” and “Daredevil” — but “Killing Season” resembles those movies in its willingness to unapologetically hold tight to a ridiculous scenario all the way through. 

With the exception of a fleeting appearance by Milo Ventimiglia as Benjamin’s estranged son, “Killing Season” almost entirely takes place in the woods surrounding the isolated cabin where the former soldier hides from the world. His last name, Ford, suggests a sly nod to America’s great Western auteur, who would likely approve of the character: a sullen John Wayne-esque hardass haunted by his bleak past but smitten with the American frontier. 

Seemingly listening to Johnny Cash’s “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” on repeat (on LP, no less) when not roaming the countryside photographing its beauty, Benjamin inhabits a peaceful world nimbly established in a handful of scenes. Then Emil arrives in cognito to stake out his prey and the illusion of contentment slips away — but only after the duo have some drinks together. 

Announcing himself as a drifter, Emil befriends Benjamin at his cabin and quickly gets him drunk; before long, they’re sprawled out in front of the fireplace boozily humming the words to the aforementioned Cash song, which addresses the movie’s anti-militant theme, in case you hadn’t already guessed. It’s hard not to giggle with guilty pleasure glee at the bizarre sight of De Niro and Travolta working with such blatantly uncomplicated material as if it were a profound acting feat. It’s equally difficult to discern if they find the material as transparently over-the-top as it plays out or if they’re kidding themselves. That ambiguous place somewhere between self-awareness and unearned gravitas gives “Killing Season” a weird kick.

But now that we’ve enjoyed these men as friends, the battle begins, with Emil trapping Benjamin in the woods during a hunting expedition the next day. Trading threats on walkie talkies while peering at each other through the trees and firing arrows across the barren land, the two men are almost too evenly matched. In the enusing fights, the power shifts from one side to the other with comical frequently: How many times can we watch Emil tie down Benjamin (or vica versa) before counting down the seconds until he finds a way to knock his captor down and turn the tables?  

That continuing redundancy is matched by a bizarre fixation on grotesque developments; Johnson includes several close-ups of bloody wounds that exacerbate the movie’s insistence on turning up every quality to the max — its conceits are as obvious as its willingness to make you squirm. Yet that also contributes to a peculiar charm. “Killing Season” is like the Saturday morning cartoon version of a terrible movie: still bad, but at least colorful enough to go down easy. 

Loaded with dimestore monologues about grief and revenge that each character indulges in whenever he has the other one in captivity, the script reaches for a takeaway that’s easily discernible from the outset. “We are the same, you and I,” grumbles Emil. But in spite of its predictability, that lesson gives the movie a unique twist by shifting its genre into the realm of a buddy movie. By that same token, it functions as a metaphor for both actors’ perseverance. In fact, “Killing Season” might be read as their manifesto — a coarse but undeniably amusing two-hander between two stars pushing retirement age but unwilling to give up.

Criticwire grade : B

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Millennium Entertainment releases “Killing Season” in theaters nationwide as well as on Premium VOD today. Its genre hook and star power should help it perform strongly in ancillary markets, though its theatrical prospects are pretty dim during this busy season. 

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Movie Review

It’s Bosnia in Appalachia

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By David DeWitt

• July 11, 2013

“Killing Season,” a mano-a-mano action thriller as subtle as its title, is so pretentious that you may wonder, at least briefly, if its antiwar metaphors are conning you while the film is purposefully wallowing in bathos. How else to explain its improbable story? More improbable is that an early draft of its screenplay was lauded on an industry watch list for best unproduced scripts.

It’s not worthless, but it’s not good. As a genre film, it’s too ambitious; as an art film, it’s too obvious.

Robert De Niro plays a United States military veteran who has become a hermit of sorts since his experiences in the Bosnian war. John Travolta is a Serbian who travels to Appalachia to find him and settle a grudge. They take to the great outdoors to hunt together, and then to hunt each other. Repeatedly. With bows, arrows and speeches. With plot twists and gore, if you’re into that.

The direction, by Mark Steven Johnson, underlines every nature-bound, macho-duel element of Evan Daugherty’s script. Mr. Travolta is almost as overstated, but he is saddled with a difficult accent he can’t handle consistently and an unrelievedly one-note character. Often a good performer, here Mr. Travolta taps unflinchingly into a dark well of obsession. But he and Mr. De Niro are acting in different worlds.

Only Mr. De Niro’s rewards a visit. His pleasantly weathering face is afforded emotionally textured close-ups, and he seems to relish his sad character’s homey routines and visceral physicality. But however engaged he is, “Killing Season” defeats him. As this film reminds us, bad things can happen to good people. Like actors, and audiences.

“Killing Season” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Tight shots of bloody injuries, usually shrugged off with expletives and fantastical manly ease.

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Review: killing season.

Make no mistake, for all the deferred killing, this is still a bloody affair, one which takes a grotesque glee in arrows being shot through faces and impromptu torture sessions.

Mark Steven Johnson’s Killing Season is a hard movie to take seriously, which is particularly unfortunate since it deals with such weighty issues as genocide, the ethical compromises that everyone makes in combat, and the lingering effects of wartime decisions on participants years down the line. If this sounds like heavy stuff, it is, and Johnson makes sure that we understand that he, at least, views the material with the utmost gravity, opening his film with a Bosnian War-set sequence of grotesque images—emaciated dead bodies, concentration camp prisoners, firing squads—all shot in a gritty “realist” style.

But the film then cuts to the present day, and instead of high drama, we’re offered something approaching high camp, though there’s every reason to believe that Killing Season isn’t in on the joke. After obtaining a file from a black marketer, former Serbian soldier Emil Kovac (John Travolta) goes from Belgrade to the Tennessee woods where the subject of that file, and the man who shot him and left him for dead almost two decades earlier, now lives. That man, Benjamin Ford (Robert De Niro), wants nothing more than to forget the past, hole himself up in his cabin, and take pictures of deer. Presumably haunted by his wartime actions, he shuts himself off from all those close to him, including his son and the new grandchild whom he’s never met.

The past, though, returns with a vengeance thanks to the sudden arrival of Kovac, who ingratiates himself with Ford, shooting the shit and sharing shots of Jaegermeister with him, before revealing his true identity and mission as the two men go out for a hunting trip. Not content to merely kill his old antagonist, Kovac wants a full moral reckoning in which he forces Ford to confess his role in the war. As such, the latter two thirds of the film play as a series of power reversals, in which one or the other of the combatants gains the physical upper hand before chattering for a seemingly endless amount of time, just long enough for the other to escape his vulnerable position and turn the tables on the other. These reversals eventually happen with such frequency that it becomes entirely comical. It’s the old movie cliché writ large: the character who has his enemy in his power, but hesitates too long and lets him escape.

But it’s coming to terms with the past, and not the simple enactment of revenge, that’s at stake here, so the two men have to talk about war crimes, moral equivalency, and the ethics of hunting (ostensibly deer, but clearly meant to refer to men as well). It’s all pretty pedestrian, but it takes on an almost laughable absurdity the more the two men converse, helped along in its ridiculousness by the novelty—and it’s nothing more than that—of seeing Travolta effect a Serbian accent.

Make no mistake, for all the deferred killing, this is still a bloody affair, one which takes a grotesque glee in arrows being shot through faces and impromptu torture sessions. But this violence, like the wartime framing device, and the pseudo-profound dialogue, are no indicator of moral gravity. In fact, any chance that a viewer would take any of this with anything close to the intended solemnity is continually undercut, not just by the fast-and-furious plot twists, but by Johnson’s feeble efforts at loaded imagery and character shorthand.

Thus the director introduces Ford listening to Johnny Cash and reading a book that a cut-in reveals to be For Whom the Bell Tolls ; he pounds home the metaphor of hunting with a ham-fisted obviousness that would make Thomas Vinterberg blush, and he punctuates the final church-set reckoning with a “heavenly” beam of light illuminating the characters. And then there are those endless symbolic shots of a hawk floating around the sky just in case we didn’t realize, what with all the genocide and such, that this is a very serious business indeed.

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Killing Season

• Two veterans of the Bosnian War, one American, one Serbian, find their unlikely friendship tested when one of them reveals their true intentions.
• Killing Season tells the story of two veterans of the Bosnian War, one American, one Serbian, who clash in the Appalachian Mountain wilderness. FORD is a former American soldier who fought on the front lines in Bosnia. When our story begins, he has retreated to a remote cabin in the woods, trying to escape painful memories of war. The drama begins when KOVAC, a former Serbian soldier, seeks Ford out, hoping to settle an old score. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game in which Ford and Kovac fight their own personal World War III, with battles both physical and psychological. By the end of the film, old wounds are opened, suppressed memories are drawn to the surface and long-hidden secrets about both Ford and Kovac are revealed. — producer
• In 1995, a UN platoon executes a group of Serbian Soldiers. In the present day, in Belgrade, the Serbian Emil Kovac who survived the execution eighteen years before, gets information about his executioner Benjamin Ford and travels to the remote Appalachian Mountain, where Benjamin lives alone, to seek revenge. Emil meets Benjamin in the beginning of a cat-and-mouse game. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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Killing Season Movie

The purest form of war is one on one.

Who's Involved:

Robert De Niro, John Travolta, Mark Steven Johnson, Anthony Rhulen, Evan Daugherty, Elizabeth Olin, Paul Breuls

Release Date:

Friday, July 12, 2013 Limited

Plot: What's the story about?

Set in the Smoky Mountains, the film follows an American military veteran (Robert De Niro) who has retreated to a remote cabin in the woods. When a rare visitor, a European tourist (John Travolta), appears on the scene, the two men strike up an unlikely friendship. But, in fact, the visitor is a former Serbian soldier bent on revenge. What follows is a tense, action packed battle across some of America's most forbidding landscape that proves the old adage: the purest form of war

official plot version from millenniumfilms.com

3.55 / 5 stars ( 11 users)

Poll: Will you see Killing Season?

Who stars in Killing Season: Cast List

John Travolta ... Emil Kovac

Wild Hogs 2: Bachelor Ride, Cash Out  

Robert De Niro ... Benjamin Ford

Alto Knights, Ezra  

Elizabeth Olin ... Sarah Ford

Who's making Killing Season: Crew List

A look at the Killing Season behind-the-scenes crew and production team. The film's director Mark Steven Johnson last directed Love in the Villa and Love, Guaranteed . The film's writer Evan Daugherty last wrote Tomb Raider and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles .

Mark Steven Johnson

Screenwriter

Evan Daugherty

Production Company

Corsan Films

Millennium Films

Watch Killing Season Trailers & Videos

Theatrical Trailer

Production: what we know about killing season, filming timeline.

• 2013 - June : The film was set to Completed  status.
• 2012 - August : The film was set to Post-Production  status.

Preparing for a June 2011 start

• 2010 - September : The film was set to Development  status.

Killing Season Release Date: When was the film released?

Killing Season was a Limited release in 2013 on Friday, July 12, 2013 . There were 13 other movies released on the same date, including Grown Ups 2 , Pacific Rim and V/H/S/2 . As a Limited release, Killing Season will only be shown in select movie theaters across major markets. Please check Fandango and Atom Tickets to see if the film is playing in your area.

Killing Season DVD & Blu-ray Release Date: When was the film released?

Killing Season was released on DVD & Blu-ray on Tuesday, August 20 , 2013 .

Q&A Asked about Killing Season

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• Fri., Jun. 14, 2013
• added photos to the film's gallery
• added a link from facebook.com
• added Theatrical Trailer to trailers & videos
• set the MPAA rating to R for strong violence, some torture, and language including some sexual references
• changed the production status to Complete
• changed the U.S. film release date from TBA 2013 to July 12, 2013
• added Millennium Entertainment as a distributor
• Sun., Jun. 9, 2013 from Movie Poster Awards
• added a poster to the gallery

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KILLING SEASON

"finding some redemption despite the soulless ravages of war".

What You Need To Know:

(CC, BB, Pa, LLL, VVV, S, N, AA, D, MM) Strong Christian, moral worldview, mitigated by some pagan immoral behavior and content about a man who has lost almost all sense of faith, with ultimately positive, meaningful references to church, Jesus, God, Confession, the Cross, baptism, forgiveness, with echoes of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; 37 obscenities (including many “f” and “s” words), six strong profanities, and one light profanity; some extreme, gruesome violence with blood including arrow pierces man’s leg, man forces another man to push stick and string through wound in his calf, man hangs other man up by the wound in his calf, arrow pierces man’s cheeks, man pours lemon and salt into man’s cheek wounds, men shot execution style, Muslim corpses on train from Bosnian war crimes shown twice, but Serbian corpses of Muslim atrocities also shown in one scene, man stabbed, pieces of wood made to fall on man; no depicted sex but crude joke about “sexual favors” and oral sex told twice, “f” word used a couple time when mentioning fornication, and Serbian man says Serbian women in his village were raped; upper male nudity; alcohol use and drunkenness; brief smoking; and, revenge, deceit, illegal activities, man estranged from his son because he no longer feels worthy of his son but that’s resolved positively, man deliberately misses his grandchild’s baptism because he no longer feels worthy of his family and apparently has lost his faith in God and Christ’s church.

More Detail:

KILLING SEASON is a manly, macho action adventure flick about war, revenge, and – eventually – peace. It’s gripping and ultimately redemptive, but sometimes gruesome. It also has plenty of crude language.

The movie opens in Bosnia in 1995 as American soldiers come across a Serbian concentration camp for Muslim men. The American soldiers are so angry at what they see at the camp that they execute all the Serbian soldiers after taking off their Serbian uniforms.

Cut to present day. One of the Serbian soldiers, played by John Travolta, is still alive. He walks into a bar in Belgrade and pays for a packet of info about the American soldier who shot him in the back, a man named Col. Ben Ford. Soon, Emil Kovac is pretending to be an immigrant hunter looking to bag an elk near Ben’s cabin in the Rocky Mountains. Emil befriends Ben, who’s played by Robert DeNiro and invites him to go hunting the next morning.

The next day, they separate and hunt for a large elk with two bows and arrows. When they finally find one, Emil suddenly takes a shot at Ben. Thus begins a dangerous cat and mouse game. Emil doesn’t just want to kill Ben. He wants to make him pay for the pain Emil suffered after Ben shot him in the back and left him for dead in Serbia all those years before.

It is exciting to see two veteran actors like Travolta and DeNiro go at it in a movie like KILLING SEASON. Their performances and the movie’s straightforward simplicity carry the drama until the very end. Surprisingly, the worldview seems to be a Christian reflection on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 in the Hebrew Scriptures, “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens. . . a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build. . . a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.” Along with this come references to a church, Jesus and God, the Cross on which Christ bore our sins, Confession and forgiveness, baptism, and references to guilt and sin. Taking its cue from such ideas, KILLING SEASON ends on a couple positive, uplifting notes. Ultimately, it’s the acting and the redemptive symbolism that lifts this movie above its generic roots. This is the kind of solid cinematic effort that veteran film directors like Don Siegel (DIRTY HARRY, MADIGAN, and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) and Robert Aldrich (THE DIRTY DOZEN, TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING, and FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX) sometimes made, in between their masterpieces.

Despite all this, KILLING SEASON contains plenty of strong foul language. There’s also a crude joke with references to “sexual favors” and oral sex. The joke is told twice but it also comments on the resolution of the conflict between Ben and Emil, including the personal demons that afflict them. Although the Bosnia War is ended, the war’s effects haven’t ended for either Ben or Emil. In fact, the war has damaged Ben emotionally. He has deliberately removed himself from his son, his son’s wife and their new baby because he no longer feels worthy of their love.

In addition to its crude language, there is some gruesome violence in KILLING SEASON. For example, the two main characters suffer terrible bloody wounds in the right leg and cheek from two arrows. Both wounds lead to a couple gruesome twists in the plot that further develop the two main characters and their identities.

All in all, therefore, because of the crude language and violence, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for KILLING SEASON.

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Killing Season Review

Upon initially learning about Killing Season , I’ll admit I was a little confused as to why a movie pitting Robert De Niro against John Travolta was getting such a limited release, but after watching Killing Season , I completely understand. Directed by Daredevil / Ghost Rider helmer Mark Steven Johnson and penned by Snow White and the Huntsman ‘s Evan Daugherty, what should have been an epic battle amounts to nothing but a few brutal torture scenes and a lazy game of cat and mouse. Plus, John Travolta as an ex-Serbian militant with a heavy accent? Um, OK, I guess he kind of pulled it off, but the whole time I couldn’t help scratching my head at the distracting casting. Luckily, De Niro isn’t forced into a silly accent himself, otherwise we might have had an unintentional comedy on our hands.

Benjamin Ford (Robert De Niro) is a former American solder and Bosnian war veteran who now lives in a secluded cabin hidden deep in the Rocky Mountains. Emil Kovac (John Travolta) is a former Serbian solder from the very same war, who cannot let go of a particular run in he had with Ford. Finally acting on his insane obsession years later, Kovac uncovers Ford’s location, and decides it’s time to settle the score. After befriending Ford, Kovac reveals his intentions while out hunting with Ford, beginning a struggle for survival while Kovac hunts his most elusive prey ever. But can Ford turn the tables on his Serbian hunter and make it out alive?

Let’s start with the positives. Coming from a true horror fan, I absolutely have to give Mark Steven Johnson a solid fist bump for reducing me into a wincing little wimp during most torture scenes. The acts that both De Niro and Travolta are forced to carry out are scarily realistic and horrifyingly brutal, as these two men beat the ever-loving pulp out of each other. Seriously, I’m feeling uneasy at this very moment just recalling De Niro’s arrow wound and the unspeakable thing Travolta makes him do to his open wound. Trust me, it takes a lot to irk me, but Killing Season had me feeling an uneasiness most horror movies don’t even achieve, all thanks to near perfect effects work and the devious minds who held nothing back visually.

It’s a shame that the whole chase was terribly anti-climactic though, because the ghastly build-ups were lost throughout an almost cartoonish exchange between De Niro and Travolta. In an ever changing battle of military wits, the upper-hand flip-flopped back and forth at the drop of the hat, as neither character capitalized on blunders the other made. Killing Season ‘s story emphasizes our soldier’s struggles to deal with the harsh realities of war, as Kovac’s character demands a confession from Ford before he can kill him, but for a man so content on revenge, his continual slip-ups should have led to a heightened need to finish his job. Ford’s attempts at trickery were straight out of Looney Tunes though, which makes Kovac’s military background even more questionable. Really? The old “play dead and strike their head with a rock” trick is a viable military tactic? When you’re facing Travolta’s Emil Kovac, apparently so.

These wacky dynamics absolutely drain Killing Season of all atmospheric tension, missing out on what should absolutely be the most dangerous of games. You never really feel a sense of despair or uncertainty, there’s no questioning which character will finish the job, there’s no thrill in the chase, and you certainly won’t be kept on the edge of your seat. The formula is far to simple for any true surprises, as audiences simply wait for Kovac to start jawing away and for Ford to pull off some miracle tide-turner. Again, for a film marketed as a dramatic thriller, it often became unnecessarily comical and a tad bit ridiculous. Even with Robert De Niro and John Travolta battling their hardest, poor planning ruins any momentum the two are able to build.

As an added point of commentary, I’ve been reading a lot of rants from Bosnian war buffs absolutely tearing Daugherty’s scrip to shreds, citing historical inaccuracies and misinterpretations. I can’t say for certain how valid these complaints are because I probably slept through this lesson in History class, but if this butchering is in fact true, I can’t think native viewers are going to be too thrilled about Killing Season .

It’s a shame to see such an epic showdown go to waste, but Killing Season doesn’t exactly know what kind of film it truly wants to be. Packed with thematic material about post-war living and the realities faced in the heat of battle, Daugherty’s hunter scenario intensity doesn’t mirror the necessary levels such a backstory warrants, and the whole project comes off with a sillier tone than intended. Hell, it almost becomes slapstick at points, as our two main characters fight a witless fight full of questionable ignorance and noticeable weak points. Ford and Kovac may have been crack shots, but Mark Steven Johnson’s film unfortunately misses the target completely.