Where does one even begin with The Hunt? The film was supposed to come out last September, but early press starting with an exclusive from The Hollywood Reporter reported that the film is about liberal elites hunting “deplorables” for sport. The conservative media had a field day with the reports and forced Universal Pictures to shelve the picture indefinitely.
Then, six weeks ago, Universal put the movie back on the calendar, this time for March 13, which ended up being the first weekend that many major metropolitan areas in the United States began implementing strict social distancing measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hunt couldn’t catch a break.
Due to these unprecedented circumstances, Universal decided to drop its three current theatrical releases, The Hunt, The Invisible Man, and Emma, on demand. Finally, people could see The Hunt and decide for themselves if it was moral abomination it was decried as or if there was an overreaction last fall.
Despite the controversy, the thing that hampers The Hunt more than anything is the quality. It’s a film that has flashes of greatness but is mostly weighed down by a sluggish plot and dialogue that thinks it’s clever and actually isn’t.
Ironically, at one point in the film, the protagonist, Crystal (Betty Gilpin, who is mostly fantastic in the film, a saving grace), says the hunters either think they’re smart but are actually stupid or they’re smart playing stupid well. The hunters, and the movie, are both the former.
For the first 10 minutes, I was annoyed with The Hunt’s angle. We watch the wealthy elites on a private jet on their way to “the manor.” I didn’t want to watch a movie about rich people hunting poor people that focused on the rich people. Thankfully, after that brief opener, the emphasis shifts to folks who have been kidnapped and are being hunted, and the emphasis remains there for more or less the rest of the film.
The first few minutes of the titular hunt features one of the most fun conceits I’ve seen recently. After flying to Croatia (although we don’t know exactly where they are until later), the film follows an unnamed character played by Emma Roberts, who is credited on IMDb as “Yoga Pants.”
Yoga Pants wakes up and watches Crystal across a stream make a compass out of a needle and a leaf before they both venture out and find a large box full of weapons, and a dozen more people, including such famous faces as Justin Hartley and Ike Barenholtz (who plays a character called “Staten Island”).
After everyone gears up, the hunt begins in earnest as bullets and bombs start heading their way. And here is the fun conceit: One by one, all of these characters played by faces we recognize are killed within 15 minutes. Roberts’ head is blown off, Hartley steps on a land mine, Barenholtz is killed by hunters playing the role of local gas station proprietors. I was fooled into thinking these cast members would be supporting companions to Crystal throughout the film, and I was, frankly, delighted by the surprising violence.
Crystal’s journey ends up being much more solitary, with one companion at a time dying as she tries to get out of the playing field and save her life. This section of the film is dramatically inert, maybe because there is no outlined goal. Obviously, she is trying to survive the experience, but what’s the plan? Is she trying to kill her captors or is she trying to evade them?
The characters keep referring to buzzy political phrases like “deplorables” or a white man saying “NPR said it’s okay to call them ‘Black’ again,” which made me cringe every time. The satire is equally spread among liberals and conservatives, but isn’t satire supposed to be funny?
Naturally, after stumbling upon the main group of richies, Crystal dispatches them handily — except for a woman we’ve only seen from the back, named Athena (who we will learn is two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank). She has been presented to us as the leader, and she is waiting at the manor for a final showdown with Crystal.
Then, there is an excruciating flashback about how the hunt came to be, which takes all the narrative wind out of the film’s sails: A year ago, Athena made a joke about “hunting deplorables” in a leaked text message which caused a firestorm, so to prove it was a joke, they decide to stage an actual hunt.
I don’t know how this makes sense even in the minds of the characters of the film, but okay. We also see how they select the victims from conservatives who were mean to them on the internet.
After this interminably long flashback, we get the second good part of the movie, the climax. Crystal and Athena battle to the death, but not before Athena can give her Big Bad speech about why they did it (the so-called deplorables forced them to make the hunt real by assuming it already was, or something) while she makes a grilled cheese that looks exquisite, another saving grace of the film.
But eventually, they have to fight, and one of them dies (no spoilers!).
The Hunt has been compared to the 1924 short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” and its 1932 feature film adaptation, but the movie I kept being reminded of while watching was Peter Watkins’ 1971 film Punishment Park (which is available for streaming on Amazon Prime with a free trial of Fandor).
Punishment Park is an excellent film, fiction though shot as if it were a real documentary, purporting to be news coverage of a group of draft dodgers who have chosen to be hunted as an alternative to serving in the military in the Vietnam War. If they reach the flag in the center of the field within 24 hours without dying, they will be free.
Punishment Park succeeds where The Hunt fails because Park doesn’t play its satire with a knowing wink to the audience, the horror of the plot plays out entirely earnestly — and brutally. It’s not in on the joke. It is an enthralling, horrifying document chronicling the mood of a generation. The Hunt, by comparison, isn’t dangerous or controversial in the least.