Richard Gere is staring at TF. Eyes narrowed, lips pursed, hair… glossy. TF is perched in a dank, abandoned tunnel somewhere in the arse-end of Croatia. We also may have just let it slip that The Hunting Party director Richard Shepard (The Matador) mentioned squabbling with his star over the final scenes of the Bosnia-based flick…

“There was a debate but it was all very healthy,” Gere cranks out a chick-of-a-certain-age-melting grin. “It’s a complex ending because it’s not realistic in a naturalistic sense but with a conflict like this, you must be very aware. It definitely could have happened, but you have to make a leap to engage it.”

The film is set amid the atrocities that took place in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s and is a based-on-true-life tale of a group of journalists chasing a Bosnian war criminal. Crash’s Terrence Howard is also on board, along with Gere. “It’s a two-hour film, so no matter what it is, it’s going to be reductive of a very complex situation,” Gere points out. “But honestly, I am amazed at how many angles are portrayed in this script.”

One flick through the TF's bumper book of war criminals confirms that the baddie-on-the-lam is based on poet, politician and alleged genocide nut, Radovan Karadzic. So, the movie must be gospel, then? “Well, we’re just trying to find a balance in a difficult situation. It’s tough given the circumstances. I mean, this area is still on the State Department watch list.”

Nice. Wish someone had told TF before we packed our overnight bag.

According to his cast, director Shepard is somehow managing to juggle the aftermath of genocide with a sprinkle of laughs here and there. “It’s played so real that these moments of comedy come from the irony of being forced into these amazing little situations,” Howard says. Such as? “Well, one minute someone has a gun to Richard’s head, the next we’re being attacked by midgets.” Midgets? In Croatia? “I know!” he guffaws. “I was shocked too, but apparently they do have them.” See, learning can be fun...