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The Hunt (2020)
The Hunt (2020)
2020 | Action, Horror, Thriller
The Hunt...a group of strangers wake up in a field, gagged, with no idea how they got there...one of them opens a large wooden box that's left in the middle of the field, inside are weapons, which they all take...then a gunshot is fired...The Hunt has begun

I'm not going to go into the plot as I think it's better to just watch the film and be surprised, it's what I did anyways.

The stand out role is Betty Gilpin as Crystal. Yes, she becomes the mainlead but DAMN she's good! She plays her part amazingly.

I'd say it's only 'horror' for the gore element, but nonetheless still worthwhile watching.
  
The Hunt (2020)
The Hunt (2020)
2020 | Action, Horror, Thriller
The new film “The Hunt” has arrived after being delayed due to world events and controversy over the films content and themes.

The film involves a group of people who wake up gagged in a field and soon find themselves being hunted by a group of unknown individuals.
After a bloody and brutal initial encounter; the remaining individuals head out into the surrounding area and soon becomes a situation with far more questions than answers.

One of the Hunted is Crystal (Betty Gilpin) deduces that things are much more complex then they seem and things take a turn in a new direction.

At this point in the film I was thinking that it was lacking any real tension or suspense as the characters were not overly developed and it made investing in their outcome difficult. The film then changes direction and looks at events of the past and also explains more about the Hunters and their motivations which is somewhat unexpected.

The film is a very difficult one to review as people will expect it to be an Action/Suspense film based on the trailers. That is really just a small part of the story which is actually closer to a Dark Comedy with heavy political overtones.
Those overtones are likely to be very controversial and may put people off from seeing the film. During my post-screening comments I said that I am going to need some time to wrap my head around this film as to if I liked it or not. It is easy to dismiss it as propaganda but it is an interesting hybrid that regardless of where you stand; does make you think.
  
The Hunt (2020)
The Hunt (2020)
2020 | Action, Horror, Thriller
Contains spoilers, click to show
I've been looking forward to this since before it was cool.

A group of strangers wake up in the middle of nowhere, gagged and confused. The last thing they remember is being home in their respective states and then waking up in a clearing with each other.

It's no mystery to some why they're there, it's the Hunt. The bored elite pick up 12 strangers to hunt for sport and now it's their turn. A box full of weapons an open field and danger in every direction. Will the prey survive?

Mindless violence like this is right up my street, usually because it's so ridiculous it's funny and shocking in the most unexpected ways. It reminds me a lot of The Condemned, although there's no amazing role for Vinnie in this.

The trailers... ugh. One gives away a lot of key points and the other misleadingly splices together a lot of footage, the latter doesn't bother me nearly as much as the first. Had they only used the international trailer it would have avoided a lot of those problems and I think it would have left a bit more surprise.

Admittedly, I probably wouldn't have noticed how many reveals there were if I hadn't gone back to find something out after seeing the film. I could not for the life of me understand why they insisted on only showing the back of Hilary Swank's head in the opening, in the plane, partially during her meeting... why? If they had kept the role a secret until a reveal at the very end of the film (I still wouldn't have understood it but) I would have kind of been okay with it... but they show her face in the trailer... so why the hidden face all the time?

We get quite a big cast here with a lot of faces to recognise, all be it very briefly at times. I'm a little impressed that they decided to knock out as many as they did so early on, and especially their choices.

We have Betty Gilpin in the lead as Crystal fighting back against her would be murderers. I've only come across Gilpin (knowingly) in Elementary where she also played a character with many quirks. There's a certain kick-assery quality to Crystal, and those bits are great, but when she gets intense and mentions she might have issues it seems odd and at times not at all clear what she might be alluding to. She seemed to handle the role well but the occasional loopy moment didn't really fit.

Hilary Swank's performance as Athena was okay but the character had a lot of different issues throughout that I personally think would have made any attempt at this role mediocre.

I'll cover some of the flaws in the movie briefly, very briefly because there are a lot of things that just don't make sense. The text message that starts the whole thing... horrendously specific and doesn't seem like a likely response in that conversation. To then cause her to rage out in her meeting and decide to have the invented rampage seems even more ridiculous. When the prey can roam anywhere, why are a big chunk of them staying in the bunker on the original drop point, and how would they have known in advance that having someone with refugees would pan out in the end? And why after being so furious about the whole thing does Athena stay in her manor? Those are some of the things to quibble about, but I'll move on.

The film appears to say a lot but honestly doesn't really say anything at all. No point is ever really followed through with and explained, so the fact I wasn't "in tune" with it I didn't take anything away from those scenes anyway. At one point they throw so many topics into a conversation that it became quite annoying. I found it interesting to read up about why the film was pulled in the first place, under the veils of some terrible incidents in America at the time when it seems that the media influence was trying to crush it even before that because of all these hot topics. I don't know why anyone would be in their case if they'd actually seen the film, but as I said, this isn't my area of expertise so I don't intend to debate on the point.

I'm not sure how I feel about the ending, all I can say is that that sandwich would definitely have been burnt.

There are a lot of threads to pick at in The Hunt but none of them actually made the film fall apart, it has some humour, including some of those moments that aren't really funny but they're shocking and you laugh as a defense mechanism. It has one moment in particular that is so far off course that I wondered if it would go all out spoof. Even with the issue I still enjoyed it, there's something in these films (like Bloodshot had been) that relieves the stress of having to think.

Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-hunt-movie-review-spoilers.html