The Hunt

Or when you make a film where I just couldn’t understand what the creator was trying to convey... Damon Lindelof recently surprised me with his TV adaptation of Watchmen, and when I saw that he was diving into this film from the screenwriter's chair, I just had to check it out. But as they say... the deed went astray. The Hunt does offer some pretty good moments (the gas station scene, the final, finely crafted female fight between the lead and Hilary Swank), but as a whole, it doesn’t work at all. The lead actress was excellent in terms of action, and I mostly enjoyed the fights and tense moments, but when it comes to the dramatic aspects, it really fell short. The overall story didn’t capture my interest; everything felt so detached, like it was stitched together with a hot needle, and only then did they realize they should have given it more attention. And the attempts at supposedly clever jokes completely missed the mark. I didn’t expect miracles, but this was also a disappointingly mediocre experience. For me, it gets 42%. (29/03/2020)

I'm pretty convinced that the scariest word of the 21st century will be 'satire'. There are bad scripts, and then there are scripts that are also bad but try to convince us that they are not by pointing out how aware they are of the genre rules they are not afraid to knowingly break. When you then combine this insufferable arrogance with an ironic statement about contemporary society, you'd have to be a real genius to get anything out of it other than a painfully spasmodic rant where even the script must have been written on Twitter, complete with hashtags. And it's probably not worth mentioning that Zobel is no genius. Aside from the final, surprisingly well done and distinctive fight scenes, it's mind-numbingly boringly shot in a typical Blumhouse production where everyone is wearing clean pressed clothes, the set is full of obviously artificial objects, and when he tries to shock, he does it with the aid of laughably digital blood. Lindelof is a filmmaker who based his entire screenwriting career on trying to emulate Joss Whedon, the king of bullshit genre self-reflections (God how I hate them), but didn't have enough talent to pull it off. Now he's just trying to make a buck off of the social and cultural internet wars, where he's trying to prove his ability to balance on a spectrum of opinion that’s pathetic. Plus, when you subtract the context from the film, notice how each scene is completely nonsensically constructed, how people behave in it, and what moves the plot along. This movie is sloppy AF. Too bad for Betty Gilpin, who the whole time gives the impression of either not being able to believe what just came out of her mouth or that somebody else is strung up in her face. She's actually quite funny when it comes to that. Like, for real. (22/08/2020)

A controversial fun satire that is a mix of Hunger Games and Hide and Seek! Finally, after a long time, a solid exploitation flick that gets going from the first minute and thankfully doesn't skimp on the gore. It sucks that within the first 15 minutes, the victims get a lot of sorting out, which I personally would have chosen otherwise, but so be it. Betty Gilpin may not be the best actress, but she's very confident in action, she doesn't fuck around, and the grittiness makes you trust her; and she can be sexy. It may be a B-movie at its core but it manages to surprise with entertaining twists and turns, where at times you have no idea who is the hunter and who is the prey, and this play with the viewer works quite well. The best though is the very final cat fight with Hilary Swank, which is the best female fight I've seen in a long time. The logic does falter, but there is decent action. Very entertaining, controversial, with a dose of dark humour and just enough violence. Out of five people, two left the theater, but I had fun. Story***, Action****, Humor***, Violence****, Entertainment****,Music***, Visual***, Atmosphere****. 7/10. (14/03/2020)

We've already had manhunting as a "hobby for the elite", but The Hunt takes this theme from a slightly different perspective. The film offers plenty of black-humour scenes and a pretty solid unpredictability – you really don't know who will die, when and how, which is a big plus. On the whole, I was bothered by the passages with too much talking that unnecessarily stretched out the running time. The Hunt is one of those films where I can understand any rating. Otherwise, Betty Gilpin pushed the envelope a little too hard at times with her bad-ass-look, whatever. (21/05/2020)

The first half is a nice and unpredictable semi-parody that relies on the audience’s familiarity with the rules of the genre, but it’s not afraid to overturn them for fun (and it doesn’t feel inappropriate). In the second half, after the most important cards have been revealed, the film falls into its own mirror and, despite the persisting quality of the craftsmanship and the insight, it can no longer surprise. The heroine is convincingly badass, but Hilary Swank’s attractive character (metaphorically and literally) had some more potential and I would have liked a bolder ending, given the concept of rewriting the expectations. Overall, though, it’s surprisingly good. 65% (22/03/2020)