Thrice Told Tales: The Hunter Doesn’t Save the Cat

There’s a screenwriting book called "Save the Cat!" by Blake Snyder. The idea is that early in a story, you want to give people a reason to root for the protagonist, such as preserving the life of a cute, furry creature (saving a puppy works just as well).

This is not the approach Donald Westlake (under the pen name Richard Stark) took when he wrote The Hunter, the first novel in a series about a ruthless thief named Parker who comes to New York City destitute and commits a series of crimes and cons to provide himself with a stake.

There is no conventional reason to like this cold-blooded crook.

Through a flashback we learn his situation. Parker was a thief who usually worked alone. He would make a score, live in luxury on excursions with his wife, and when he ran out of cash, rob again. Against his better judgment, he joins a crew to pull off a big heist. After the robbery, one of the crooks kills everyone else to take the whole haul. He thought he killed Parker, but he was wrong.

The novel follows Parker as he tries to collect on the $45,000 that is “rightfully” his. Even when it leads to taking on “The Outfit” – the mob – who can’t believe he would go to such trouble for such a paltry sum.

That’s what draws some readers in. Parker may not have conventional moral values, but he does live by his own code. He’s not looking for anything except what he “earned.”

The novel was published in 1962, and the first film adaptation came out five years later.

Point Blank (1967)

Though the film keeps the novel’s plot, it changes the title – just as well, because The Hunter has a very generic ring to it. More interesting, the character isn’t Parker, but Walker (played by Lee Marvin). And the soundtrack emphasizes his walking. The click-clack of his shoes dominates scenes as he approaches his enemies in “The Organization” (rather than “The Outfit”).

The cash amount and the setting are altered in the film as well. The novel was set in Manhattan, the film on the West Coast, beginning at the former island prison, Alcatraz, and ending at Fort Point (by the Golden Gate Bridge). Walker is searching for $93,000, still an amount “The Outfit” considers chump change.

Consistent with the novel is the central character. Lee Marvin as Walker radiates cool, and certainly not warmth. As in the novel, he goes to the apartment of his wife, who betrayed him. It doesn’t seem unlikely that he would kill her, but she takes her own life by overdose. Walker doesn’t seem too bothered by this.

Walker finds his partner, Reese, who betrayed him during a robbery and took his money. Walker asks Reese for the money, but he’d given the money to “The Organization” to buy his way back in. After Walker inadvertently kills Reese, he goes after the criminal syndicate to get “his” money.

The film has a great cast, particularly for fans of 1970s television. Walker’s love interest (well, if Walker was capable of love) is Chris, played by Angie Dickinson, Pepper Anderson from Police Woman. The rifleman in the film is played by James Sikking, Howard from Hill Street Blues. And one of the bigwigs in The Organization is played by Carroll O’Connor, Archie Bunker of All in the Family. The film also has an “Introducing” credit for John Vernon, Dean Wormer from Animal House (okay, I know that’s a seventies movie rather than a TV show).

Most important, though, Lee Marvin as Walker is believable as a man who can’t be stopped. He was a tough man in real life as well as on screen.

Marvin enlisted in the Marines after World War II began. He served as a scout sniper in the Pacific theater. He held the rank of corporal (but he was demoted for troublemaking). He received a Purple Heart (machine gun fire severed his sciatic nerve), along with several other citations, ribbons, and medals. He was a tough guy who played tough guy, but in a 1983 interview, Marvin said this about Point Blank, after viewing it years later: “We made it for the violence. I was shocked at how violent it was.”

The film was directed by John Boorman (Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory), with the feel of an art film, but not to a degree that it dims the action or tension. It’s remembered as a classic modern noir film.

Payback (1999)

The protagonist in this story is Porter (alliterates with Parker), played by Mel Gibson. He doesn’t save a cat in the opening of this film, but he does steal from a blind man (or at least from a man claiming to be blind). The ad campaign for the film said, “Prepare to root for the bad guy.”

Many claim this film sticks closest to Donald Westlake’s novel. Here Porter’s $70.000 is stolen by his partner, Val, who teams up with Porter’s wife, Lynn, who shoots Porter, leaving him for dead.

Val uses the money to buy his way back into what is called “The Outfit” in this film. Porter goes to see his wife, perhaps to kill her, but she says Val has left her. Porter sees she has been using heroin and tries to take away her stash. He doesn’t get it all, and she overdoses. (In the book and the previous film, she dies by pills rather than the needle.)

Porter goes after Val, who doesn’t have the money. Val tells him he gave the money to the Outfit and gives Porter the names of the higher-ups in the Outfit. After Val’s unfortunate demise, Porter must once again work his way through the Outfit to get his $70,000.

There’s an additional distraction for Porter in this movie. A couple of corrupt cops pursue him, hoping for a financial windfall. (The cops don’t believe Porter when he says he’s going after the mob for “only” $70,000.) Also going after Porter? The Chinese Triad that Porter and Val robbed.

Lee Marvin played many more bad guys than Mel Gibson. Gibson is a more conventional movie star, but he certainly works in the role. The cast is stacked with movie stars. Among the leaders in the outfit: James Coburn (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), Kris Kristopherson (A Star is Born, Convoy, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), and William Duvane (Marathon Man, Family Plot). Bill Duke (Predator, Commando) is one of the crooked cops. Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels, Kill Bill) is the leader of the Chinese Triad. And Maria Bello (Coyote Ugly, Prisoners) is the love interest.

The film did well financially, but wasn’t a favorite with the critics (56% at Rotten Tomatoes, not so fresh). You know who else was unimpressed? John Boorman, the director of Point Blank. He didn’t actually see the film, but he said that the shooting script, which he did read, reminded him of an early draft of Point Blank – a draft they’d thrown out the window. Boorman suggested that Gibson had found that script in the trash.

Play Dirty (2025)

This is the only film of this trio where the central figure has the same name as in the book: Parker. That’s particularly interesting because otherwise, this Amazon Prime production has so very little to do with the original story.

It does begin with Parker being betrayed by his partner, but in this film, it isn’t one guy betraying another guy. Nope, a gang of half a dozen men and a woman rob a racetrack money counting room. Almost immediately, Parker gets his “save the cat” moment.

One of the thieves threatens to shoot a hostage. Parker comes to the hostage’s aid. And when Parker does kill a man, he gives the man’s girlfriend $10,000 of the haul. The filmmakers are trying so very hard to show that Parker is a really good guy, even if he is a thief and a killer.

In this version, it’s not a man who betrays Parker and the rest of the gang, but the gang’s woman driver. At the gang’s hideout, Zen (Rosie Salazar) begins to change her clothes in front of the rest of the gang, but it’s just a ploy. She pulls a gun and shoots them all.

Even Parker (Mark Wahlberg) who falls into a rushing river outside the hideout.

Parker doesn’t die, of course. He goes to the wife of a member of the gang and tries to comfort the widow (Gretchen Mol), promising revenge.

When Parker does find Zen, she does a bit of “cat saving” herself. She didn’t betray the gang and steal the loot for any selfish motivation. Instead, she plans to use the haul as seed money to do an even bigger heist: retrieving a sunken treasure. She’s not doing any of this for herself, but to save her persecuted country from a cruel dictator.

When Parker learns that millions of dollars are at stake, he decides to join up with Zen. They put together a wacky gang of cutups to capture the diamond and jewels and a treasured ship’s masthead. At one point, Parker’s gang remotely commandeers an elevated railway train in New York City and accelerates its speed until it crashes. Hard to believe that Parker would be so careless as to involve himself in something that would bring in the scrutiny of not only the police but also state and federal authorities.

Instead of adapting The Hunter into a film, we find ourselves watching a strange mashup up of National Treasure and Ocean’s Eleven.

What makes this all the more disappointing is that the writer and director of this film was Shane Black, a man responsible for some truly great modern thrillers: Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The Nice Guys. The only thing this film has in common with Black’s prior classics is that it also takes place at Christmas time.

The main problem with this adaptation is the script. And the direction. And Mark Wahlberg as a tough guy. But it does have one truly amazing moment.

Wahlberg shoots Mark Cuban. Not an actor playing Mark Cuban. Not Mark Cuban playing a character. Parker shoots Mark Cuban. So, there’s that.

The three takes on Westlake’s The Hunter sadly follow the law of diminishing returns.