The Hunt

On the 3rd and 4th of August last year there was a pair of mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. 31 people lost their lives. In the ensuing dash to blame anything but American gun laws the spotlight fell on an upcoming film called The Hunt and the gunfire filled trailers promoting it. When the tangerine tinted führer started ranting about the film on twitter without even seeing it Universal decided it would be prudent to pull the film from it's Septemer release date and now after 6 months it's finally coming out this friday. Was it worth the wait?

11 strangers wake up in a rural area. They're gagged and haven't a clue what's happening. When they finally get to speak we find out they're red state Americans and they're pissed. One of them finds a crate of guns in a field and they arm themselves to the teeth. Then a shot rings out in the distance. A blue state shot.

It's never the best thing when the highpoint of a film is the first 30 minutes. The Hunt has a very strong opening, full of lovingly shot carnage (it earns it's 18 certificate with ease) and a couple of genuinely shocking developments. It takes the kind of risks you'll be surprised to see in a studio movie. For a brief time you can see why the establishment was afraid of it. Sadly it goes downhill after this but it remains fitfully entertaining til the bitter end (the final fight is a doozy) due to it's insistence on taking potshots at both sides of the political fence. No one is safe here, not the characters or the audience watching them. Some people will take offence at the broad characterisations on display but if you do that you're just falling into the film's trap.

The barbs aren't aimed at you, they're a satire of online performatism, from both sides of the fence. You'll see democrats screaming about climate change and gendering while plotting bloody murder and republicans living up to the hick stereotype with ease, shouting about snowflakes while impaled and blown in half. American guns laws are lampooned with both sides fetishizing the almighty firearm. Class divides are skewed in ways you won't expect. But ultimately and rather disappointingly The Hunt fails to take a side, happy to remain sniping from the fence. The vast majority of the film's venom seems aimed at the left but then the film's "hero"is Crystal (A commanding and convicing Betty Gilpin) a one woman killing machine who's allegiances are left unsaid. It feels like a cop out from writer Damon Lindelof until you remember his involvement in Lost, that show that started off brilliantly before devolving into a disaster.

The Hunt is the 14th film adaption (by my reckoning) of The Most Dangerous Game, a short story from 96 years ago that still feels topical today. A story about the privileged and the games they play. It's updated here to make it fit a 2020 timeframe with allusions to whatsapp groups, political podcasts. fake news and the 1% but it still manages to be less successful than the two adaptions of the story from the mid 90's, Hard Target and Surviving The Game. Two films that left the political aspects of the story unsaid while still being steeped in them. Two films that definitively chose a side.

The Hunt is out in cinemas on Friday.