The plot of the film follows twelve strangers who mysteriously woke up in the clearing of an area called Menor House. They don’t know where they are or how they got there, but it soon becomes clear that they have been chosen to be hunted in a game designed by a group of rich people and that the popular internet conspiracy theory is true after all. It turns out that these people were not chosen at random, but based on their conservative views expressed online. The plot arises when one of them, Crystal (Betty Gilpin), strikes back, aiming to reach the mysterious Athena (Hilary Swank) who is at the center of everything…
We’ve all seen or at least heard of The Purge, a franchise that satirizes the deep political divide between the American right and left in a rather radical way. Behind the almost continuous scenes of violence, there are political messages, and I believe that the authors found inspiration for their film there, but it will turn out that here the uproar about politics was mostly unfounded, because the whole story lacks a real political bite. The left-right division partially served the story, but only in relation to the motives of the villains.
In that case, since the political content is reduced to segments, the question of why it is there in the first place is justified. Either it’s about the author’s beliefs, which for some reason they didn’t push to the end, or about the superficial decoration of a bloody thriller in order to achieve the effect of controversy. Because of all this, the bloodstains and mangled bodies that fill the action sequences of the film are far from being serious. Especially when the dialogues use discussions of politically correct terminology, internet slang, entertainment theories and confirmations that climate change is real, uttered just before the execution.
The Hunt is truly the definition of a violent film that provides entertainment for those who find it entertaining. The first third is incredibly explosive and I liked how the script eliminates every character that seems to be the protagonist of the story. Where this film shines is the shock effect, but the best part of the story ends too soon. As the number of participants decreases, we realize in which direction everything is going and we become disinterested in what will happen because everything becomes predictable and boring – even the location where the story takes place will not surprise us.
There are two reasons why I decided to watch this movie, namely screenwriter Damon Lindelof (Damon Lindelof), who worked on The Lost and The Leftovers series, and the appearance of double Oscar winner Hilary Swank. As someone who had absolutely no expectations, I didn’t bother with the political background and I can say that I had a solid time (you already know that I’m not a moral stone). The final fight has phenomenal choreography, but the one-on-one fight as the climax of the film can only be another confirmation that the author’s intentions were rather shallow.
