Killing Season
Short description
Killing Season is an action thriller about two veterans of the Bosnian War who meet years later in a remote part of the Appalachian mountains. Benjamin Ford, an American, has withdrawn to an isolated cabin, hoping to leave his memories of the conflict behind. A European visitor named Emil Kovac turns up at the cabin, apparently a tourist who has lost his way, and the two men begin to spend time together. Kovac is in fact a Serbian ex-soldier who served on the other side and has come looking for Ford to settle an old score. Once the truth comes out, the men turn on each other in a drawn-out pursuit through the surrounding wilderness.
Mark Steven Johnson directed the film, which he made after When in Rome and before Finding Steve McQueen. Robert De Niro plays Ford and John Travolta plays Kovac, with Milo Ventimiglia as Ford's son, Liz Olin as his wife, and Diana Lyubenova and Kalin Sarmenov in supporting roles. Evan Daugherty wrote the screenplay, and the film was produced by Anthony Rhulen, John Thompson and Paul Breuls for Nu Image, Millennium Media, Corsan and Promised Land Productions, with Belgium, Bulgaria and the United States among the production countries.
Released in July 2013 and running 91 minutes, the film drew a critics' rating of 3.3 out of 10 from 20 reviews. On IMDb it holds 5.4 out of 10 from around 40,000 votes, and on TMDB 5.5 out of 10 from over a thousand votes, putting it near the middle of Johnson's filmography in audience reception.
What's left behind the scenes
- The original script was set in the 1970s.
- Shortly after the "1995" title card appears, a soldier is shown with an EOTech holographic sight on his rifle. This type of sight did not become available until 2001.
- John McTiernan was originally slated to direct the film, but after the director was imprisoned, Mark Steven Johnson took his place.
- The project was previously titled "Shrapnel," and Nicolas Cage and John Travolta were considered for the lead roles.
- In the hunting scene, the number of arrows in Emil Kovac's quiver does not match the number of shots he fires.
- Robert De Niro replaced Nicolas Cage in the project.
- Towards the end of the film, when Emil is baptized in the church, he does so as if he were Catholic, although the plot establishes him as an Orthodox Serb.
- When Ben Ford looks at a bird in the sky, an Andean condor is shown. This bird only inhabits South America.
- When Ben is holding Emil at gunpoint on the cliff, a change in shot reveals him holding the rifle sometimes higher and sometimes lower than his waist.
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