Posted on

The Hunt

The Hunt

What if a bunch of smart ass, politically correct, NPR-loving, elite liberals decided to kidnap a bunch of gun-owning, Trump-supporting, Hannity-loving right-wingers and then… turn ‘em loose and hunt ‘em down for sport? Wouldn’t that be something!

That’s what happens in The Hunt, a film whose story features many clever surprises and a highly entertaining final face off. The film contains lots of blood and violence, some of which is comical.

A key thing to know is that the movie pokes fun at both sides of the political divide and questions what we may believe about those on the left and those on the right. The rich folks here are the lefties. They are also the ones with the vast arsenal of weaponry.

The right-wingers who are hunted appear to be more simple folk. Although one, Crystal (Betty Gilpin) is smarter and braver than the others. Another, Gary (Ethan Suplee), a man who shares conspiracy theories via a podcast, turns out to be more perceptive than he initially appears to be.

Hillary Swank is the best-known star in the film. Her screen time, thought brief, is effective. Also in the cast—which is, FWIW, almost exclusively white—are Amy Madigan, Ike Barinholtz and singer/songwriter Sturgill Simpson.

The script for The Hunt is by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse. And, although Lindelof should never be forgiven for the way his TV show Lost ended, he brings fun twists and turns to a century-old short story. Speaking of short, the movie clocks in at an efficient, fast-moving 90 minutes.

You may notice that the release date for The Hunt was revised on its poster. Because of its violent content, the film’s release was postponed from last year in the wake of multiple mass shootings.

The Hunt is a smart satire of the current polarization in America. Unless you have no sense of humor, you are likely to be amused. It will certainly give you some good fodder for conversation on your drive home from the theater. Rated R.

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s