JACK HUNTER (2008)

Full Name:	Jack Hunter
Nationality:	American
Organization:	NSA
Occupation	Other - Treasure Hunter

Creator:	Terry Cunningham
Time Span:	2008 - 2009

ABOUT THE SERIES

Jack Hunter is a treasure hunter.

Okay, he might prefer archaeologist since that is what he went to university to study but - what we watch him do is hunt for treasure. It would be hard to imagine him at a traditional dig site working on his knees using a small brush to uncover small fragments. Hunter, who has likely been working in his chosen occupation for at least a decade, being around 35 years old when we meet, is definitely a man of action and far prefers to be in the thick of things.

One thing that Hunter is definitely not and has absolutely no desire to become is a spy. Nor does he go out of his way to look for ways to save the world. That does not mean, of course, that he isn't pulled into situations where he has to work with spies and take part in said globe saving. The intelligence organization in question is the NSA. Hunter has no idea when he gets pulled into the extensive operation that he will play such a major role in that a department of his country was so deeply involved but he definitely gets up to speed quickly.

NSA is trying to get their hands on a potentially very powerful weapon from the ancient past of Egypt. Hunter is not that pleased that such a power, if it really exists, might be in their control but he is very much against the item falling into the hands of the Russian olygarch who is spearheading and bankrolling its own search for an object call the Star of Heaven. To keep the Russian from getting it, Hunter has to help the NSA.

Hunter is a tall, slender man with impressive speed and agility and apparently a high threshold for pain and discomfort because he spends a good deal of time racing away from people shooting at him, often needing to leap through windows or off roof tops or onto or off of moving vehicles.

He is also a very good looking man with thick brown hair and a perpetual five-o'clock shadow. He has a good eye for the ladies and they definitely like what they see in him.

MOVIES

Number of Movies:	3
First Appearance:	2008
Last Appearance:	2009


1			Jack Hunter and the Lost Treasure of Ugarit Director: Terry Cunningham Writers: Michael Palmieri, Kevin Moore, George Shamieh, Steven Jones Actors: Ivan Sergei as Jack Hunter, Joanne Kelly as Nadi Ramadan, Thure Riefenstein as Albert Littman, Susan Ward as Liz Released: 2008 "Young archaeologist Jack Hunter planned only to take a picture of a cuneiform tablet from once unsurpassed Mesopotamian metropolis Ugarit in present Syria, but is caught and has to steal it from a private museum in France. He refuses to join his mentor, professor Frederic 'Freddie' Shaffer, who believes the poem is a coded treasure map, on a relic hunt, until his friend is murdered to steal it. Obvious suspect is Syrian artifact trader Ali, so Jack flies to Damascus. There he must accept working with local, US-educated colleague Nadia and her driver Tariq. Their lives are threatened during the long relic quest, for one by common nemesis Albert Littman, but another secret lurks too."

2			Jack Hunter and the Quest for Akhenaten's Tomb Director: Terry Cunningham Writers: Michael Palmieri, Kevin Moore, George Shamieh, Steven Jones Actors: Ivan Sergei as Jack Hunter, Joanne Kelly as Nadia Ramadan, Thure Riefenstein as Albert Littman, Susan Ward as Liz, Alaina Huffman as Lean Halstrom Released: 2008 "Jack Hunter is abducted blindfolded to a Turkish US base to be recruited by the NSA, told his mentor was killed because Albert Littmann's Russian mob employer Doridanov want the ancient Osiris-weapon. He accepts to go look for the other part in Gizeh, where archaeologist Lena Halstrom has dug up a lead on a site which was attacked by mysterious, mythologically cloaked men, hence the Egyptian in charge, Said, shut it down till further notice. In fact it's the doing of a Midianite (Sinai desert) sect of Akhenaton-worshipers, who try to steal the obelisk from the museum after Jack deciphers its Ugarritian cuneiform text, which contains clues for a treasure-hunt to the pharaoh's tomb-treasure."

3			Jack Hunter and the Star of Heaven Director: Terry Cunningham Writers: Michael Palmieri, Kevin Moore, George Shamieh, Steven Jones Actors: Ivan Sergei as Jack Hunter, Joanne Kelly as Nadia Ramadan, Thure Riefenstein as Albert Littman, Susan Ward as Liz Released: 2009 "Jack Hunter realizes the pharaoh's tomb being empty except for a Roman coin means the treasure was looted to Rome but later probably transferred the the new, Byzantine capital, Constantinople. There the NSA reunites him with Nadia and Tariq, mainly as cover, to prevent the mighty combined weapon falling into criminal hands. Russian mob king Petrvosky increases the pressure on Littman. each side count on Nadia's lover, Fuad Antaki, son of the Turkish antiquarian Armen Antaki, who once sold the Star of Osiris, which now traces to a Konya convent."

MY COMMENTS

This trilogy of adventures, all part of a overlapping story arc, has been said by a fair number of critics to be a (my words here) low budget rip-off of Indiana Jones. Definitely a fair point and I would not attempt to argue against.

It does, though, throw in the whole NSA is backing a huge hunt for a major new/very old weapon and for that reason it qualifies for membership in this compendium. Chances are good that it would have gotten here anyways even with the NSA presence because the bad guy is a Russian oligarch out for world domination.

But NSA presence makes it kinda fun.

GRADE

My Grade: B

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