"Tracker" finds actor Ray Winstone playing Arjan, a veteran tracker hot on the heels of Kereama (Temuera Morrison), a fugitive on the run. Much of the film consists of a cat and mouse game between predator and prey, Kereama doing his best to outsmart and avoid Winstone's seasoned huntsman. Unusual for such cat and mouse chase movies ("The Hunted", "The Fugitive", "US Marshals", "First Blood", "Chain Reaction" etc) the action takes place in early 20th century New Zealand, director Ian Sharp treating us to scene after scene of jaw-dropping natural scenery, our scampering cast often dwarfed by mountains, waterfalls and vast undulating grasslands (shades of Michael Mann's "Last of the Mohicans").
Strictly speaking the movie may not be a western, but as its set in 1903, takes place on the British frontier and possesses a number of the signifiers typical of the western genre (the arrival of civilisation, an expansive wilderness, gunslingers, trackers, cowboys, horsemen, private justice, nomadic wanderers, bearded wild-men, clashes between white men and indigenous locals etc) we might call it a Kiwi Western. The Western genre is itself filled with similar bounty-hunter tales. Some recent ones: "True Grit", "Seraphin Falls", "The Outlaw Josey Wales", "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" etc.
The film tries to be political. Kereama is Maori, a native of New Zealand, and Arjan is a Dutch settler from South Africa, both men at one point persecuted by the British Empire (The Boer Wars and New Zealand Land Wars). The film ends with a bit of three-way atonement, the Dutch, British and Maori learning to forget and forgive their bloody past histories. For the most part, however, the film is stripped down, sparse, wordless, and content to unfold on an archetypal level. Winstone's your classic monosyllabic maverick, his silence masking some deep past pain (the slaughter of his family).
The film sports a contrived opening, some hokey character interactions and was shot on a very low budget with a tiny crew. The film's script is at times obvious, but such archetypal tales rely on a certain amount of familiarity. Think of "Tracker" as a very good B-movie genre flick.
7.9/10 – Worth one viewing.