The film sees a group of people kidnapped and wake up to find themselves taking part in an event called The Hunt. Very quickly most of them get killed off in quite spectacular fashion by liberal elite. The people that are being picked off are classed as deplorables which is a term used Emma Roberts appears at the beginning and you think that she’s going to have a sizeable role but is killed off quite quickly (she’s credited as Yoga Pants so she was never going to last long). That opening scene is really good because you have no idea what’s going and wonder who is going to see out the first 15 minutes.
Film does a weird back story quite late in the story and this is where we are introduced to Hilary Swank. This happens on the hour mark and the film is only 90 minutes long so Swank isn’t in the film very long. To be honest it was at this point that I wondered what the point of casting Swank in the role because they could have given the role to a lesser actor but she gets to deliver some exposition before having a really good fight with Gilpin. The film says that the Athena made the hunt happen because it started out as joke but because people thought it was real it got made real.
The whole reason why the hunt exists is perhaps the weakest part for me. I just didn’t find it made sense and didn’t grab me. There has been some critiscms of this film because it’s a social satire but because it’s a bit too broad, the satire isn’t quite as sharp as it could have been and as it basically treats the liberal left and the hard right with the same distain, it’s hard to appreciate the humour.
The reason why the film works for me is that the film works as a bit of fun. If you put the social message to one side this is an enjoyable film. I thought that Betty Gilpin was the star of the film as Crystal. She gets battered at several points in the film and gets to batter people. There is one moment when someone is looking at the camera and then their head gets blown off by Krystal.
I quite like The Hunt. I wish I had seen it at the cinema but I am glad that I saw it. The film doesn’t work in the way that I think they hoped it would but if you just take it at face value then you will enjoy the film and it doesn’t slow down at any point during its 90 minutes running time.
