The bounty hunter is the ultimate outsider in law enforcement. Neither elected like a sheriff nor sworn in like a cop, the bounty hunter gets in harm’s way as much as officers but with less authority and even lesser respect.
Also known as bail enforcement or fugitive recovery, bounty hunting is uniquely American. The profession traces its roots to the days of the pioneers on the Western frontier. Not surprisingly, only two countries in the world allow it: the United States and its former colony, the Philippines.
A Filipino American bounty hunter brings the best of both worlds in my debut thriller, Multo, meaning ghost in Tagalog. The novel follows Domingo as he looks for the only quarry that has ever eluded him, a biracial Filipina who can disappear like a ghost. Domingo is unlike any other bounty hunter. He’s an immigrant who deports criminal undocumented immigrants. It isn’t lost on him that he’s the best in the business because of his similarities to his targets.
To celebrate the bounty hunter trope, I rounded up (in chronological order) the 10 best movies that throw the spotlight on the profession.
The Naked Spur (1953)
If your image of James Stewart is that of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, brace yourself for this film. You’ll see a whole new side of Stewart. Set in the vast expanse of the Colorado Rockies, Howard Kemp (Stewart) is hot on the heels of Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan), who killed a marshal in Texas. Kemp enlists the help of an old prospector who thinks Kemp is a law enforcement officer, and allows a former Union soldier to tag along. When they catch Ben and his girlfriend Lina Patch (Janet Leigh), Ben reveals that Kemp isn’t an officer but a bounty hunter. Kemp’s former fiancée abandoned him when he was fighting in the Civil War, plus she sold his farm. Kemp hopes to use the $5,000 price on Ben’s head to buy back his farm.
The film turns into a psychological thriller as Ben tries to turn his captors against each other. The entourage encounters an ambush, shifts alliances, and Howard falls for Lina. The question persists throughout the film: will the bounty hunter win the cash and the girl?
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
The bounty hunter trope, like the Western genre, may be all-American, but that didn’t stop the Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone from carving a niche of his own. For a Few Dollars More was shot in Italy like other Leone films, known as spaghetti Western. As the sequel to A Fistful of Dollars, Clint Eastwood reprises his role as a gunfighter. This time, he takes up bounty hunting and chases El Indio, an escaped convict. Lee Van Cleef (as Colonel Douglas Mortimer) is also after the man. How to resolve their rivalry? A duel, of course. After proving their shooting skills to each other, they join forces to capture El Indio. Eastwood charms with his trademark squint and brashness, while Van Cleef is perfect as the justice-seeking officer-turned-bounty-hunter.
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Long before Quentin Tarantino became the King of Cinematic Violence, there was Sam Peckinpah. In this Western epic, a group of bounty hunters led by Thornton (Robert Ryan) are chasing a gang of aging outlaws known as The Wild Bunch after a railroad-office robbery. The Bunch, led by Pike (William Holden), barely gets away. Worse, their loot turns out to be a sack of iron washers. They realize Thornton’s bounty-hunting posse had set them up. The gang seeks refuge in a remote Mexican village run by a brutal general. He offers them a job – to steal weapons and ammunition from a U.S. military transport. They finish the job, but get entangled with the general himself. The ensuing gunbattle is one of the longest, loudest, and bloodiest scenes in cinema. This movie earned Peckinpah his nickname: Bloody Sam. You’ll have to watch it to believe it.
The Hunter (1980)
This biopic about bounty hunter Ralph “Papa” Thorson was tailored for Steve McQueen whose fans expect nothing less than an action-packed film. The Hunter delivers. The movie follows Papa as he chases one bail jumper after another, beginning with a young LeVar Burton as Tommy. Unlike bounty hunters in Westerns, Papa isn’t ruthless, but an amiable guy who just wants to do his job. He even puts in a good word for Tommy, so the judge cut him some slack. Tommy starts hanging out in Papa’s house with other bounty hunters. But not all fugitives are harmless like Tommy. An ex-con with an ax to grind is bent on murdering Papa. This was McQueen’s final movie, made just before he died of lung cancer at the age of 50. For that alone, it’s a must-see for McQueen fans.
Blade Runner (1985)
No offense to fans of The Mandalorian and Boba Fett of the Star Wars franchise for skipping those characters, but I’m not a science fiction fan. However, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the exceptional sci-fi book that I like. Hence, Blade Runner, based on Dick’s book, is on this list.
Rick Deckard, played by a smirky Harrison Ford, is a bounty hunter enlisted by the police to catch androids (called replicants) that have escaped from the outer colonies. The book uses the term “bounty hunter,” while the film made up the term “blade runner.” They mean the same thing.
As Deckard hunts for the replicants, he meets and falls for Rachel (Sean Young), who discovers she’s not human only because of Deckard. Futuristic trappings aside, Blade Runner presents a classic bounty hunter who has little authority but an abundance of audacity. To demonstrate the lowly status of the bounty hunter, Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh), the inspector who strongarms Deckard into taking the dangerous assignment says, “You know the score, pal. You’re not cop. You’re little people.” Deckard concedes, saying, “No choice, huh?” Of course, he takes the job.
Midnight Run (1988)
This is my all-time favorite bounty-hunter film, thanks to the comedic chemistry of Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. Jack Walsh (De Niro), a former cop turned bounty hunter, easily captures Jonathan Mardukas (Grodin), a mob accountant and embezzler who jumped bail. Walsh must take Mardukas from New York to Los Angeles, and the journey turns bumpy as the FBI, the mob, and a rival bounty hunter try to nab Mardukas.
I love Midnight Run because it’s many things at once – a bromance, odd-couple movie, road-trip adventure, and bounty-hunter flick. Unlike the strict sense of good-versus-evil in similar films, Midnight Run happily stays in the gray area. The embezzler and the bounty-hunter-with-a-checkered-past are more ethical than either law enforcement or the bail bonds agency that is trying to keep them in line. Also, the ending is sweet.
Unforgiven (1992)
This film and For a Few Dollars More bookend Clint Eastwood’s iconic bounty-hunter persona. He starts as a young, cocky antihero in Sergio Leone’s film and ends as an aging killer in this Oscar award-winning film. He portrays William Munny, a former gunfighter who accepts the Schofield Kid’s (Jaimz Woolvet) offer of teaming up with him to avenge a prostitute who survived a knife attack. They’re working for the cash reward, so they’re considered bounty hunters, although sticklers might insist they’re assassins.
Munny, who’s past his glory days, asks his friend Ned (Morgan Freeman) to help out. Along with the Kid, they locate the culprits, but Ned changes his mind and turns around. He falls victim to the men of Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) who display his corpse to warn Munny and the Kid. But they’ve already done the job and gotten paid for it. Still, Munny returns to town to avenge Ned. This slow burn of a Western is arguably Eastwood’s best film both as an actor and a director.
Domino (2005)
Keira Knightley does a 180-degree turn from playing Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice to a bounty hunter in Domino. Part of Domino’s allure is that it was inspired by Domino Harvey, a British model and the daughter of an actor and a fashion model. She became a bona fide bounty hunter in Los Angeles, even winning an industry award in 2003.
It’s impossible to tell which parts of Domino were fictionalized, but I’m positive no bounty hunter can inflict so much violence and get away with it. In one scene, Domino’s team severs a man’s arm just to get the combination of a safe tattooed on it. We’ll never know how truthful the film is because the real Domino died of a drug overdose at the age of 35 shortly before the film’s release.
Django Unchained (2012)
Bounty hunters in film are overwhelmingly white. Quentin Tarantino blazed a trail when he created Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who takes on the job not for money but to find his wife, Brumhilda. He learns the ropes from Dr. Schultz, the German immigrant and bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) who freed him. He explains bounty hunting to Django, saying, “The way the slave trade deals with human lives for cash, a bounty hunter deals with corpses. Like slaves, it’s a flesh-for-cash business.”
They find Brumhilda, but they must extricate her from the clutches of evil plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Tarantino presents a revisionist narrative, in which the ex-slave defeats the white man and gets the girl too. Waltz won the Oscar for best supporting actor for portraying Schultz.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is transporting a fugitive, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), to Red Rock, Wyoming, when he begrudgingly allows two passengers to share his carriage because a snowstorm is coming. Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) is also a bounty hunter, a former slave and Confederate officer, while Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) is Red Rock’s new sheriff. The storm forces them to stop at Minnie’s Haberdashery, except Minnie isn’t there. Instead, they find four strange men all seeking shelter.
This is the odd Western set largely indoors. It resembles a claustrophobic Agatha Christie story, with all the suspects stuck in one place. Tarantino outdoes himself in terms of racial slurs, misogyny, and rampage. Unlike in Django Unchained, the bounty hunters here have neither work ethic or moral compass. Indeed, there isn’t a single character with redeeming qualities. In other words, if you love Tarantino, you’re going to enjoy this film.
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