William Friedkin is no stranger to high energy thrillers. While the famed director is most known for The Exorcist, he was also responsible for The French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A. His new film The Hunted is much more familiar than those expertly crafted pictures, but it benefits from a swift pace and sure-handed execution.

The Hunted begins, fittingly enough, with a verse from Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, spoken by legend Johnny Cash. The film ends with the completion of the verse, and it bookends the movie perfectly.

In The Hunted, Benicio Del Toro is Aaron Hallam, a military trained killer who, following several blood drenched missions, finally cracks and wreaks his own havoc on unsuspecting wildlife hunters. Tommy Lee Jones is L.T. Bonham, an ex-military man who just so happened to train Hallam years earlier. L.T. is brought in to track and capture Hallam, but this proves to be difficult as the now over-the-edge Del Toro is a tough guy to keep up with.

Despite having seen Jones do this "tracking" thing numerous times now, he still manages to be captivating. Thankfully, he brings much more depth to his role as L.T. than he did in the dismal Double Jeopardy. In The Hunted, Jones plays a man who seeks redemption for a past he's not all that proud of. Del Toro is quiet and menacing as Hallam, and his brooding, blank stare is effective. This is a man who's committed dreadful acts and is now being eaten alive by their memory. So painful in fact, that he is now unable to function in a normal manner. Jones and Del Toro are enemies of sorts, but they also play out a father/son dynamic that brings an emotional depth to their final confrontation.

William Friedkin knows how to direct action sequences, and The Hunted has plenty of them. Most impressive are the hand-to-hand combat sequences which, while quite graphic, pulsate with realism as Jones and Del Toro squint, pant, and experience all the pain. This isn't a standard macho action flick in which fearless heroes fight with superhuman strength. These are real men engaged in a tiring battle to the death, and the climax of this movie is absolutely exhausting.

It saddens me that The Hunted comes in at a short ninety minute running time, and as I watched the film, it was clear that things were missing. This isn't a movie with much character development. At one point in the picture, Del Toro has a run-in with an old flame and her son, but rather than exploring the past or future of this situation, it is completely side-stepped and comes across as irrelevant.

The Hunted certainly smacks of The Fugitive and First Blood, but as familiar as it is, it works extremely well as a thriller--relentlessly speeding from one sequence to the next. Friedkin has fashioned a roller coaster ride of a movie with a surprisingly textured performance by Tommy Lee Jones, and a solid turn by tortured soul Benicio Del Toro.