Review: The Hunt (2020)
Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 1:00PM
by Tony Ruggio
Blumhouse’s much-ballyhooed American political satire has finally seen the light of day after postponement due to a mass shooting last August, only to meet an unprecedented global pandemic this spring. With multiplexes closed nationwide, it’s one of a few major motion pictures to release early on VOD. Eschewing anything resembling subtlety or a desire to make a cogent point, The Hunt is a glib quasi-horror romp designed to prod and provoke, but dips into irrelevance by trying too hard for that sweet spot of zeitgeist...
The film is quite gory, if not scary, and is barely saved by a well-choreographed fight scene at its climax and a captivating lead performance throughout. Betty Gilpin is a revelation as a politically neutral, take-no-prisoner war vet thrust in the middle of a sadistic Most Dangerous Game-style hunting safari for rich leftists. Her character Crystal Creasey may be underwritten, but her choices for said character are fascinating. She alone brings her to life in the absence of much happening on the page, going big when you expect her to lay low and vice versa. Gilpin is an unpredictable livewire, and I look forward to seeing what she does next.
Gilpin is surrounded by easy stereotypes and one-dimensional depictions of both the right and left. Here, all Republicans are rural, gun-toting blue-collar folk and all Democrats are snobby, wealthy Hollywood folk. Jason Blum and director Craig Zobel forgot about the inverse cases, I guess. What about the Wall Street uber-capitalists and upper-middle class who voted for Trump? What about the poor working class and struggling Millennials who voted Democrat? By presenting only one brand of voter on either side of the spectrum, The Hunt exacerbates the dumbing down of our national discourse. Dialogue is littered with buzz words and political catchphrases that date the film before the credits have rolled.
It’s not that “deplorables” and “snowflakes” aren’t a part of our national lexicon anymore. It’s that The Hunt parades them around with such glee and garish comedy that it’s clear the movie is stuck in 2017 and feeling clever about it, too. Character actors like Ethan Suplee and Ike Barinholtz do their best to liven things up, but they’re no match for a script that needed a few more drafts.
Swank vs Gilpin in the final battle
Between this and last year’s I Am Mother, it’s good to see Hilary Swank back at it again. At the one-hour mark it’s looking like she might be wasted, and then a third-act womano-a-woman showdown kicks ass for a sustained ten-minute battle that proves to be a true banger. Whoever choreographed it deserves applause. It’s unfortunate I can’t say the same for much else beyond Betty Gilpin, though. C+
Reader Comments (8)
I had not heard about this movie but looking at the poster I really believed that she was the protagonist of Killing Eve.
Praising Swank desrvingly for I Am Mother, and I'll trust you on The Hunt, at The Film Experience? Love this new direction. After the recruitment of the dominant Claudio and a brilliant piece from Tony, Team Experience is killing it! Take as much time as you need to get better Nathaniel, the fort is safe. Plus as somebody reminded me earlier you need to get Seasons Of Bette and the Smackdowns in motion young man! :)
Reignited my desire to see the film so thank you Tony.
How further can Swank fall.
This is just another version of "The Most Dangerous Game" the first and still the best was made in 1932 by the team who made "King Kong", starring Joel McCrea and Fay Wray
Trifling hoes in the comments making me do double duty today but..... SWANK4EVA
I thought it was silly fun. Don’t think it was trying to be the sharp political satire so many seemed to expect. More like a b movie Horror/comedy hybrid. You included Tony, seem to be grading it on the curve of your expectations, not what the movie actually was. Also, there was a Wall Street guy...he had a pretty big part at the beginning. I believe Emma Roberts and the hot guy from This Is Us were supposed to be wealthy too. And since you’ve seen the movie and therefore know the twist, why would you think poor millennials would be involved? Or that the whole political spectrum would be included? Like the twist kind of makes that comment irrelevant given it lays out exactly why everyone is there.
Gilpin is so so good in Glow... while this looks like rubbish I look forward to hopefully seeing more & more of her.
@Danny
If a film is attempting to make some grand point about American politics and the differences between liberals and conservatives, it oughta try to include the entire spectrum. I don't recall the film actually stating or even clearly implying that any of the "deplorables" were wealthy Wall Street types.
I graded the film according to its own ambitions, which were vast.