Initially set to release in September of 2019, The Hunt is a dark comedy/thriller that, due to its violent premise, was shelved after a rash of mass shootings in the United States and later released in March of 2020. As if the conflict between real-world events and fictionalized violence wasn’t enough, the film also drew the attention of President Trump for its politically-charged satirization of the divide between the liberal and conservative population of the United States. Based purely on the film’s marketing, the president claimed the film’s purpose is to “inflame and cause chaos.” While the film actually plays out a little differently than the marketing lets on, this base assessment of the film actually holds true. Unfortunately, it never seems to firmly come down on one side or the other of the debate to make any kind of meaningful impression.
The Hunt tells a surprisingly twisty and clever story of a collection of strangers who wake up bound and gagged in a forest only to find out that they are being stalked by another group with the intent to kill. At a very superficial level, it mimics the premise seen time and time again derived from Richard Connell’s story “The Most Dangerous Game” of the idea of hunting humans for sport, but this time with a unique political right-vs-left twist.
A great deal of the enjoyment I got out of the film comes from a mid-movie reveal that I am carefully attempting to skirt in my description of the plot. Without divulging too much, what is actually going on in the film is a very clever echo of the country’s current political and social landscape including “cancel culture”, “fake news”, and social media having a profound impact on peoples’ lives. Unfortunately, everything surrounding this core idea involving the actual hunt is very direct-to-video in every aspect. A majority of the fun derived from the film relies too heavily on shock value, including very abrupt spurts of violence and plot twists. While this is effectively entertaining on a first watch, I have serious doubts much can be gleaned on subsequent viewings.
My biggest complaint with the film is that it tries its damnedest to ride the line between who it wants to vilify and who it wants to defend as to make sure it can reach the widest possible audience. Both sides of the conflict are shown to be incompetent in their own ways, with the “liberal elite” being portrayed head-up-ass, hyper-sensitive and emotionally fragile while the conservative “deplorables” run the gamut from gun-toting hypocrites to aggressively-illiterate conspiracy theory podcasters. Our only anchor in the film is Betty Gilpin’s character Crystal, who doesn’t quite fall into either camp being as close to what we can call a moderate party. I’m sure their intention was to highlight how both political extremes have their failings, but the end result felt overly cautious, pandering, and weak.
Crystal remarks early in the film that the people hunting them are either dumb people pretending to be smart or smart people pretending to be dumb. At times I began to think of this as the thesis of the film, however intentional that might actually be. The screenwriters seem to think that the reversal that the film rests on is a big enough ace up their sleeve to hold up the entire film, but they couldn’t be more wrong. While this certainly caught my attention for a few minutes, it did little to wash the taste of poorly-shot action and heaviest-of-handed writing out of my mouth. At best, The Hunt is a Sunday-afternoon mild chuckle that can be consumed once and never be thought of again.
5