Screenwriter-director Richard Shepard does the same thing with crazy war correspondents in his highly entertaining and thought-provoking new film, The Hunting Party, that he did with burnt-out hitmen in 2005's The Matador.

The main difference this time is the much more sensitive subject matter, given the dark comedy-drama-adventure is set against the backdrop of the Bosnian war and is based on events immortalized in an Esquire article by veteran war journalist Scott Anderson.

All you need to know about The Hunting Party is the film's opening disclaimer: "Only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true."

Richard Gere, who seems to be hitting his stride as an actor in his later years, perfectly captures the nothing-to-lose spirit of a danger-obsessed, adrenaline-junkie, pill-popping newshound named Simon Hunt, the reporter of a seemingly fearless two-man TV network news team that includes the somewhat saner cameraman Duck, portrayed by the equally compelling Terrence Howard.

"Simon gave me balls I never knew I had. Of course, I got shot four times and Simon never got so much as a scratch," says Duck in voice-over.

But when Hunt has an on-air meltdown on live network TV after a particularly nasty assault on a Bosnian village, he is promptly fired and eventually disappears from the mainstream, reporting as a freelancer for third and fourth-rate TV outlets from various war zones while Duck is promoted to a cushier in-house camera job in New York City.

Five years later the two men meet up in Sarajevo for the fifth anniversary of the end of the war with Duck babysitting Benjamin (Jesse Eisenberg from The Squid and theWhale), a Harvard-educated journalism graduate who also happens to be the son of the network's vice president.

Hunt has the insane idea that they should try to find Bosnia's most notorious war criminal, "The Fox," for both an exclusive interview and the $5-million reward for his capture.

It's a bit like making Osama bin Laden your target if you were an Iraq correspondent.

But this being a movie, Duck blows off his gorgeous girlfriend (Joy Bryant) who is supposed to meet him for a three-week vacation in Greece and signs on with his old pal for their most dangerous assignment yet with the rookie Benjamin in tow.

It is the three actors' chemistry and their wild adventures through the totally gorgeous if slightly sinister Bosnian countryside that keep the film moving at a brisk pace. But never once does Shepard let the viewer forget the rape and slaughter of thousands of Muslims during the Bosnian war.

The trio are shot at and repeatedly threatened but always seem to keep their eye on the main prize.

"It's only when you put your life in danger that you are truly living. You need me to remind you of that," Hunt tells Duck after one particularly close call with mortality.

Naturally the unlikely threesome are mistaken for CIA operatives because no one believes they're actually journalists and Gere's tactics as one ring true as they move from village to village looking for "The Fox."

"I'm going to do what any good journalist does when he gets to a new place -- I'm going to find a bar," Hunt says.

Also memorable in smaller roles are a black-hair-laquered James Brolin as a Sam Donaldson-type news anchor, Diane Kruger as a street-tough black marketer in Sarajevo and Dylan Baker as a cold-hearted CIA boss.

(This film is rated R)
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