An extremely well made film by the fans of The Lord of the Rings, both the book & Peter Jackson's film, The Hunt for Gollum is a 40 minute fan-made feature that showcases the 17 years between Gandalf the Grey leaving the Shire to his return to save Frodo Baggins after learning about the magical ring of Bilbo that Frodo has now inherited. It presents the events that was presents in the book but was skipped over by Jackson's film and concerns Gandalf meeting with Aragorn to hunt for the creature Gollum before the enemy finds it & learns the truth.The direction is very impressive & the amateur cast does put up a performance that is much more improved from what one generally expects from a fan film. Also, the shoe-string budget this film was made at retains an artistic fluidity of its own & is an admirable homage to Jackson's film & its production design, including the rendition of Gollum. On an overall scale, The Hunt for Gollum, apart from a different cast, very much looks like the missing part of Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring that didn't make it to the final print and is a remarkable work by the entire production team.P.S. The movie is free for all & is available on YouTube as well as their site. So if you're a fan of The Lord of the Rings, I suggest you give it a try. The Hunt for Gollum will surprise you in ways fan-films rarely do.

I'm sure I will going to get a lot of negative votes from the fans for this comment, but after reading so many glowing reviews I feel I need to tell my truth. It's true that the visuals of the film are pretty impressive (at times, not all the time) for a no-budget short, and that the makers have made a mighty good attempt at reproducing the atmosphere of Jackson's movies at a tiny fraction of the cost; also, there is a notably well choreographed fight scene of Strider against the orcs; but once you get past all the shiny packaging, it's impossible not to notice that the plot is not just thin, but practically non-existent. There are absolutely no surprises, and in 40 minutes it hardly manages to go beyond its one-line synopsis. All the film seems to do is its own little riff on some of the characters of Jackson's trilogy without adding anything new or meaningful. It certainly serves as a good calling card for the director, but it left me with a feeling of... nothingness.

This movie must be recommended to every Tolkien fan out there. But even people who don't consider themselves to be fans can be entertained for 40 minutes by this movie. Although it is said that the budget amounts to 3.000 pounds this film does not actually look like a low-budget flick. The work and preparation behind this movie (a "behind the scenes" is available somewhere) look almost professional. The dedication of the team absolutely outweighs a big budget. Some shots of the landscape are quite amazing because they seem like original film locations (yet, I think they're not, of course). The CGI looks quite good, too. All in all this little fan made piece of Tolkien's world impressed me deeply. These guys should really think about producing something from the Silmarillion. ;)

First off, I'm not a die hard LOTR fan. I enjoyed the trilogy and consider them a notch above most Fantasy films out there. I was surprised by all the positive reviews here about this little "Fan Film" online. I guessed they were all coming from the LOTR geeks out there who invade the web with positive reviews for anything with the word Gollum in it. In the first 30 seconds of watching this film I was instantly transported back to Peter Jackson's Middle Earth, I was shocked. In fact, I was so shocked that I couldn't really enjoy it the first time through because I was too confused by the quality of this film in all its aspects. The acting is great, the cast is great, the cinematography is great, the fight scenes are some of the best in the entire LOTR series, the pacing and attention to detail are at a level that has been lacking in Hollywood for some time. I've now watched this film 3 times and it seems to be getting better with each viewing. My only gripe with "The Hunt for Gollum" is that it ended so soon. I could have very well sat for another 2 hours watching this skilled director spin his web. Forget about Guillermo del Toro, hand "The Hobbit" over to Chris Bouchard. He is the only director out there who has proved himself worthy of the task.