Premise: Liberals go hunting a select group of conservatives in a role-reversing horror comedy.
It's hard to even know where to begin with this movie. It was a troubled movie in many ways. The initial 2019 was delayed out of respect for a pair of mass shooting in the U.S., given the flippant violence of this movie. I appreciate when a movie has some fully unintended connections that cause it to be delayed. Gangster Squad reshooting a climactic shootout in a movie theater right after the Aurora shooting seems smart. Delaying Collateral Damage after the term became a major talking point with 9/11 makes sense. However, making a satire about violence in the U.S. that has to avoid events of actual violence in the U.S. is a bit of a red flag. Anyway, the movie was pushed to March 13, 2020: aka the last weekend before COVID fully shut down movie theaters. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.
The credentials behind this movie are pretty great. I'm a David Lindelof acolyte. He coproduced and cowrote the movie. Director Craig Zobel is a nice indie director who has handled uncomfortable subject matter before with Compliance and Z for Zachariah. The film was produced under the Blumhouse banner was well, which guarantees a level of technical proficiency in horror. A hell of a cast too, even with many of them as cameos.
I think this is a wicked fun idea. The role-reversal of stereotypical character types is an interesting idea to explore. I love the idea of killing off so many of the characters early. My friends and I had the exact response they intended: complete bafflement. We were in the middle of saying how much we liked Emma Roberts right as she was killed. I was reminding them where Justin Chatwin was from right as he's killed. When it got to Ike Barinholtz, I told myself "Rule of threes. He's fine." right before he's killed. The opening of this movie is madness and I loved it. I've never been more convinced that Betty Gilpin is a star than in this movie. She rules. It makes it even more disappointing to see her with such a weak role in The Tomorrow War. She could've kicked ass in that. The film pays off moments well too. I was prepared to revolt if no one ended up eating that grilled cheese at the end. It doesn't take much to win me over sometimes.
Overall, I really didn't care for this movie. Some of it was more of a physical reaction. I'm not a fan of its style of hyperviolence. It's hard to knock the movie for that. They fully intended for it to be that violent. Most of what lost me is the messaging of the movie. I didn't think this movie was very clever. Rather, it felt like it was telling me how clever it was. And cleverness without subtlety quickly turns into smugness.
I think the hardest thing to do is write characters who you fundamentally disagree with. Part of the reason why 30 Rock is my favorite show is for how it wrote Jack Donaghy. It's clear that the writers don't agree with him on most things, but that didn't stop them from writing favorably for him. The show genuinely understood that it wasn't about whether he was right or wrong in a scenario. It was about how he viewed a scenario versus how Liz Lemon viewed it. It's much more interesting that way.
The Hunt seems like it's going for something interesting. The antagonists are the liberal elites that the writers clearly agree more with in principle. The protagonists are basically Q-Anon. It walks that idea back though. You see, the only reason the rich liberals decided to hunt humans was because they were being accused of and cancelled for it anyway. And in the laziest bit of writing imaginable, the film's protagonist, Betty Gilpin wasn't the right person. Just someone with the right name. So, don't worry. You haven't actually been rooting for a Right-wing conspiracy theorist the whole time. She's just a regular person (with advanced armed forces training). No need to actually challenge any thoughts here. Those Q-Anon people still can remain abstract principles who you never have to engage with. Also, don't worry, these are clearly crazed 1% liberals, so you don't even have to see yourself in them. I would've taken a "everyone sees the error in their ways" story over this, which washes its hands clean of having to take a stance on anything.
Side Rant: The wrong person thing with Betty Gilpin really annoys me because they already built an out for her before that. When the hunters are picking their targets, they get to the person they think Gilpin is and her score is only a 65. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but compared to the others, it's low. They even say she's borderline. Having her be the correct person immediately makes this movie more interesting. For one, it shows the outrage drift where people look at any disagreement as black or white rather than adjusting the anger based on the size of the offense. Secondly, wouldn't it be way more effective for the movie to end with Gilpin's being like "Honestly, I was on the fence about the story originally, but you sure proved me right now"? That makes the point of the movie better than what they actually went with.
Finally, this movie does fail on the very thing it promised. The hunt sucks. Like, I know this is a heightened story. I don't need any of it to be plausible. So make the hunt actually thought out. The people being hunted mostly die immediately. Others get picked up by Croatian military quickly. Just have a facility that's difficult to escape. Have the hunters give the huntees the Harrison Bergeron treatment so it isn't a level playing field. Just structure it like a safari hunt. Show the story from both perspectives. Let us get in the heads of everyone. Make it so that even if you removed the political satire, it's still a fun movie about a hunt. For example, without the class commentary in Ready or Not, it's still fun to see the bride turn the tables and try to survive. No one wants a movie that is satire first. Especially if it's not very clever, the jokes are lazy, and no attempt is made to challenge any ideas.
I'm actually quite shocked that the ratings for this movie are as high as they are. This feels like a 18% on RottenTomatoes, not a 58%. The C+ CinemaScore seems high as well. I would've thought the switcheroo about the cast deaths early would've turned people off. People hate being tricked. Look at Cabin in the Woods. That's a genuinely great movie and it got a C CinemaScore because people went in thinking it would be a more traditional slasher movie. Why didn't this happen with The Hunt? I try not to read many reviews before writing these reactions, but I'm very curious to see what other people say about this movie. Did they think the hunt part actually was effective? Did they find the satire to be smarter than I did? Perhaps it's a selection bias. Maybe a lot of incisive critics knew it wasn't for them and they left it to the BloodyDisgustings of the world who would give it slightly positive nods for the gore alone. Regardless, I thought this was just about the worst version of the movie possible.
Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend
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