The Hunt

The Hunt

2019

Director- Craig Zobel

Cast- Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank, Ethan Suplee, Ike Barinholtz, Wayne Duvall, Glenn Howerton,

            

      A secret cabal of “liberal elites” are kidnapping “right wing” citizens and hunting them for sport. They screw up when they kidnap a badass (Betty Gilpin) who turns the tables on them. She works her way through her captors in a systematic (and quite humorous) slaughter.

           

     That’s it. That’s the whole plot of the movie summed up in 30 seconds. The plot is irrelevant though. There have been a hundred versions of The Most Dangerous Game so it’s not like you don’t know what’s coming. The reason to watch this is not the plot but the humor and gore.  The movie takes a dim view of both sides of the political spectrum. It takes shots at both the “conservative” enthusiasm for conspiracy theories and the “liberal” fetish for political correctness and the eagerness of both sides to believe the worst about the other. Anyone possessed of a strong allegiance to either end of the political spectrum will find a lot to be offended by, which I guess is the mark of good satire.

            

     

     The highlight of the movie is of course Betty Gilpin. If you’ve watched GLOW on Netfllx then you’re familiar with her. Not only can she pull off convincing action sequences but she has good comedic timing. She plays the part a little odd. Her character has a strange blunted affect complete with bizarre facial expressions which just makes it funnier.

           

     The Hunt provides a good lesson that any movie has a limited window of opportunity to make an impact. If a story reaches an audience before its ready, the merits of the film are missed. If it’s too late, the audience is bored with the subject. Never mind all of the money that goes into promoting a film. That can’t be sustained forever.

            

     The movie began production in 2018 and as funny as it is, it would have been funnier 2 years ago. It’s not that its political commentary is outdated now. On the contrary. It’s almost too on the nose to be enjoyable. Remember how funny Mike Judge’s Idiocracy was 10 years ago? Now it feels more like you’re watching a documentary. The same applies here. It’s hard to laugh at the political vitriol parodied in The Hunt given that the vitriol displayed in our everyday lives has reached such a high level.

            

    

    The Hunt was originally slated for release in September 2019. However, in a situation of life imitating art, 2019 was a particularly bad year (as opposed to those good years?) for mass shootings in the United States (with a mass shooting almost every day) and the weeks leading up to September were tragic to say the least. On August 3rd, a mass shooting in El Paso killed 22 people and injured 24 more. The very next day a gunman in Ohio killed 10 people and injured 27 more. The month ended with another mass killing in Texas where a man killed 8 and injured 25 more. With all of this real life violence piling up, Universal (probably wisely) thought that the last thing that movie goers would want to see was a movie about people killing each other over perceived differences.

           

     So the movie was put back on the shelf with the intention of releasing it in March 2020. But we all know what happened then. Coronavirus swept across the world and hundreds of movies that were scheduled for release were put back on the shelves in hopes of release at a more opportune time. Universal (again probably wisely) decided to cut its losses and not hold its breath for an eventual wide theatrical release, so the movie came out digitally instead.

            

    Betty Gilpin is A list material but The Hunt won’t be the movie that propels her into A list status. Ten years from now when the world is (hopefully) slightly more sane, maybe The Hunt can build a cult audience, but probably it will just be another movie in the $5 dollar bin, a victim of bad timing.