Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Heart of the Hunter’ on Netflix, a Rock-Solid South African Actioner About a Retired Killer Dragged Back Into the Biz

Innovative action movies are harder to find than the Ark of the Covenant, and that’s why the genre is more about honing the craft. Case in point, Heart of the Hunter (now on Netflix), a South African programmer that shows little interest in deviating from the retired-killer-is-heavily-compelled-to-get-back-in-the-game subgenre tropes – which so often have so much to do with special OPS or black OPS, always with the OPS the OPS the OPS – so it’d better give us some scintillating fights, chases and gunplay, right? And that’s a matter of style and execution, which director Mandla Dube shows often enough to maybe keep us watching. 

HEART OF THE HUNTER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Zuko Khumalo (Bonko Khoza) thinks he’s out. But will they pull him back in? Probably! Especially now that he’s past his life as a black-ops assassin who slays people with a massive spear, and settled down for a nice boring domestic life with Malime (Masasa Mbangeni) and her boy Pakamile (Boleng Mogotsi). He repairs motorcycles for a living. He bought an engagement ring. He gets on smashingly with the kid. Nothing will force him back to his old life. Nothing! You might as well stop watching the movie right now, because it will be about little more than getting up and eating breakfast and playing with the boy and turning a wrench. HAPPINESS REIGNS.

But. Things are happening in the shadows. Sleazy corrupt scumbucket presidential candidate Mtima (Sisanda Henna) has a thing for taking care of dissenters. He’s targeted Johnny Klein (Peter Butler), an old ally of Zuko’s, as a terrorist. And he has the head of the Presidential Intelligence Agency, Molebogeng (Connie Ferguson), in his pocket. Johnny Klein knocks on Zuko’s door one morning and gets the pulling-back-in process moving, but it’s not easy – Zuko’s haunted by the time he unwittingly speared the living life out of a guy in front of the guy’s kid. We all know guys like Zuko, because we’ve all seen a lot of action movies about killers who’ve gotten out of the killing business and end up back in the killing business, because the killing business isn’t so easy to get out of but is very easy to get back into, especially if you have things you love in your life that become easy targets for villains. You know, like a dog, or a fiance with an adorable little boy.

Anyway, back to this Johnny Klein fella. Mtima is a full-blown threat to democracy, and there are other political considerations to consider if you’re up to considering them, but why would you be? You’re waiting for Zuko to get back to doing what he does best, and that ain’t being a family man (although we should give him credit for being pretty good at that). So of course, Zuko resists, but there comes a time when he has no choice but to not resist anymore. Meanwhile, there are a few other plot dev- er, characters padding out this story, including PIA agent Naledi (Nicole Fortuin), who does the right thing instead of the wrong thing like Molebogeng, and grizzled journalist Bressler (Deon Coetzee), who’s trying to take down Mtima with the fourth estate instead of whatever estate it is where one uses a terrifyingly huge spear to take people down – like Zuko does.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Does every new action movie beg comparison to John Wick? Yep, pretty much.

Performance Worth Watching: Multi-dimensional characters in this film are, well, what’s the opposite of a dime a dozen? But Khoza is reasonably convincing in the role of a man pulled in two directions by his internal conflict – and good enough to keep us involved. 

Memorable Dialogue: Bressler gets all the good lines: “Please don’t call me ‘sir.’ I’m a scoundrel and a drunk.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Don’t judge Heart of the Hunter for being predictable. Judge it for its rock-solid technical prowess – thoughtful execution of hand-to-hand combat sequences, the occasional stylistic indulgence, slick editing and a pretty good eye for filling the frame. The film has the feel of a lowish-budget digitally-shot direct-to-VOD actioner of the type that inexplicably turns up on the Netflix top 10 once in a while (some of you out there really enjoy the Sniper franchise!), but with a more invigorating visual sense, which tells us that Dube isn’t necessarily collecting a paycheck, but may have something to prove as a director. 

And that modest, but notable invigoration keeps Heart of the Hunter afloat. There are moments when the film feels convoluted for its own sake (there’s a point where I wanted to yell PLEASE STOP INTRODUCING NEW CHARACTERS TO THE PLOT), when the melodrama feels a little overjuiced, when we yeah-right our way through a scene in which a truck stuffed with highly explosive gas tanks conveniently rolls into the frame so it can blow up real good and Zuko’s motorcycle can look cool as eff zooming through the flames. But Dube is wise enough to realize that practical effects render films like this far more credible, so he leans away from CGI, crashing real cars and emphasizing the tangible whoomp-and-crack of punches landing brutal body blows. It’s a pretty simple formula that CG-addled films seem to overlook: When violence feels realistic, the stakes are raised, and the movie is all the better for it. 

Our Call: Heart of the Hunter isn’t going to eclipse the Wicks and Bournes of the world, but for a modestly engaging  

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.