courtesy of Weinstein Company

For 100 years, filmmakers have been telling the stories of war, ranging from its heartbreak to death and revenge.

Richard Shepard’s “The Hunting Party” focuses on the black comedy of the aftermath of the Bosnian-Serbian war. After that war, the U.N.’s most wanted criminal was Serbian commander Radovan Karadzic, the man accused of ordering the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims.

“(There was) this article about these real journalists in Bosnia five years after the war who started looking for the most wanted war criminal,” Shepard said. “And along the way they got mistaken for a CIA hit squad and something about it seemed to hit a lot of buttons for me.”

Shepard blended the real story of the five reporters with his finesse for black comedy, infusing the story with lighter moments and transforming the five into three men of different ages.

The film opens with the warning that “Only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true,” and sets out to prove that point.

“The stuff that seems like it’s cinematic contrivance is actually real and the stuff that seems like it would be real – like Richard Gere having a breakdown – is completely made up,” Shepard said.

Gere stars as ringleader Simon Hunt, a washed-up TV reporter disgraced after an on-air breakdown, who’s searching for a way back to his former life. He convinces his friend and photojournalist Duck (Academy Award-winner Terrence Howard) to follow him on a wild-goose chase after a fictional Bosnian Serb war criminal nicknamed “The Fox.” Also starring is Jesse Eisenberg as rookie Benjamin, who manages to hold his own with seasoned veterans Gere and Howard.

Writer-director Shepard took his idea from an Esquire article and attempts to infuse the political story with elements of humor, but succeeds only in making his end message seem campy and drawn out.

“I didn’t set out to make a political statement,” Shepard said. “By the end of the day we certainly did make a political statement. Meanin, that I didn’t start with the concept of I’m going to make a movie about why war criminals aren’t being caught’ and then I went and wrote this movie.

“I got hooked by the adventure element of the story.”

Perhaps, then, that is ultimately Shepard’s problem. Without a clear message in mind, his film comes across as jumbled and misdirected, making it clear that he was merely attempting to entertain.

However, while mildly engaging, “The Hunting Party” is simply a campy war comedy with an insufficient political message and nothing more than a ranting Gere to entertain.