The Hunt

2020

R

12 people are unknowingly drugged and sent on a flight to an unknown location. This group of people all have something in common. They are conservative Americans and they are being hunted by a group of liberal elites. Upon coming to their senses, the rest of the conservatives stumble upon a crate filled with guns, keys to the gags that they wore, and other weapons. After their discovery of the crate, a few of them are killed, but a handful of them survive. The ones that survive realize that they’re being hunted, because they bashed the ones that were involved in a “Manorgate” conspiracy. Three of the captives walk into a Mom and Pop convenience store where they’re led to believe that they’re in small Arkansas town. Miranda (Amy Madigan) and Julius (Reed Birney), or Ma and Pop, run the “store”, but it is only a trap for the captives to be killed. After those three are killed Crystal Creasey (Betty Gilpin), who is an Afghani War veteran, walks into the store and Ma and Pop aren’t ready for what she has in store for them.

Crystal later meets up with two remaining captives Don (Wayne Duvall) and Gary (Ethan Suplee). The hunters want the captives to turn on each other in nearly every imaginable way possible and everyone other than Crystal doesn’t realize it. They were lied to about their location and tensions are high for the remaining survivors. The mastermind behind the hunt and the reason that Manorgate was a thing was Athena Stone (Hilary Swank). A leaked group text conversation, that was ultimately a joke was the reason that the hunters’ lives were ruined, but they felt they were pushed too far and made a joke into reality. Athena and Crystal meet up in the end, because Crystal said some nasty things about Athena in a social media post and Athena wanted to kill Crystal. Athena knows the background of Crystal and pretty much everything in her life story, but things aren’t always what they seem.

I decided to watch this movie a few weeks ago and I had no clue what to expect. I had no idea that the story surrounding this was politically charged and after finding that out, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch it. I’m not a political person and I don’t like for my personal views on politics and social issues to be known, so I was almost deterred from watching it all together. I decided to watch it anyway and to my surprise, it was bad at all and it was complete satire. The big thing that one needs to know about this film is to not listen to what people say about it. Politically, it doesn’t lean one way or the other and frankly, they made both sides look like morons. If they decided to go one way or the other, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it, but it was a decent film because they didn’t. Is it one that I’m rushing to watch again? No, but if you are in the mood for a good, violent, action/satire film; this isn’t a bad one to choose.

This was one of the first films that was harmed by the pandemic and quarantine and this was one of the main reason why I wanted to watch it. The films box office numbers are somewhat skewed due to this, so we can’t say if it would’ve been a box office hit or not. The film had good amount of star power also. Betty Gilpin was the leading lady and she is most known for her lead role in the Netflix series, GLOW. Hilary Swank is a very popular actress and winner of multiple Academy Awards and Golden Globes. Ethan Suplee, who was famous for a number of TV and movie roles including, Boy Meets World, My Name is Earl, The Wolf of Wall Street, American History X, and Remember the Titans. Glenn Howerton of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fame was in the film and Emma Roberts, who has had many movie and TV roles through the years, was in the film as well. The most surprising person in the film was undoubtedly, Grammy Award-winning outlaw country artist Sturgill Simpson. When I saw this movie, it didn’t expect to see him in it whatsoever.

My overall thoughts about the movie are that it was a decent film, but don’t watch if you are skittish around blood. It is a gory, violent film and the R rating should be a good indicator of that. There is also a lot of strong language in the movie. The film was interesting throughout and I had no problem following what was going on, but like I said before, I’m not rushing to watch it again. It is fine for what it is, but I urge you to not pay attention to reviewers when they say that it leans politically one way or the other, because it doesn’t. The hunters and the hunted are equally stupid, the perfect mix.

GRADE: 3.5/5

Yacs

Movie Review: The Hunt