While outrage mobs, cancel culture,
and calling for censorship are regularly practiced by the modern Left, The Hunt proved that the Right can also sometimes
succumb to such behavior. The premise of
the movie involves working class conservatives – who are even referred to at
one point as “deplorables”, Hilary Clinton’s derogatory term for Trump
supporters – getting abducted and taken to a remote location where they are
hunted for sport by wealthy liberals. Conservatives
saw this as another Hollywood attack on them, and in anger, they began calling
for the movie’s cancellation. And that was
exactly what happened. This movie was
supposed to be released late last year, but partly due to the conservative
outcry, it got pulled from its studio’s 2019 release schedule. Eventually, its release got re-scheduled for early
this year.
Back then, I really thought that
it was dumb and inconsistent of conservatives to get outraged of The Hunt when, first of all, it’s a work
of fiction, and secondly, they hadn’t seen the movie yet. It felt like the Joker thing all over again. Plus, even based on its premise alone, it was pretty
clear that liberals were the villains of the story. So why get riled up then? You may get ridiculed, but it’s the other
side who’s arguably getting demonized.
Well, if ever any of those incensed
conservatives saw this film, they are probably embarrassed afterward. First of all (SPOILER), the unreasonable conduct
that they had just displayed poetically mirrors that of the conservative
characters in this movie. Second of all, in a sense, The Hunt is actually quite pro-conservative.
At first glance, The Hunt seems like a Saw-type survival horror movie. And it does have some elements of that. However, at its essence, it’s actually a
straight up political satire. Keyword:
satire. Hence, the tone is that of a
dark comedy. It has gory deaths and
violence, but most of the time, they are done for laughs. And indeed, this movie has a couple of creative,
side-splitting kills and impalements. Furthermore,
when not for the sake of humor, any depictions of brutality and gore in this
movie are for the sake of the action. In
other words, The Hunt can actually be
more accurately described as “action comedy” than “horror.”
As a political satire, it pokes
fun at both sides of the aisle of Trump’s America. However, it’s something that the Right will
more likely enjoy than the Left, because: a.) the Right can usually take a joke; b.) it
mercilessly mocks the Left’s penchant for political correctness, virtue
signalling, identity politics, and other aspects of their silly SJW ideology;
c.) it preaches against cancel culture (which is commonly a Left thing, although
in this case, conservatives are the ones guilty of it – both in the movie’s
story and in the real-life presumption of this movie); and most importantly, e.)
it has a “victim fights back” narrative in which the malevolent liberal elites
have the tables turned on them by one of the so-called “deplorables” that they
look down to.
The “deplorable” in question is
Crystal, played splendidly by Betty Gilpin.
From the first time she appears on screen, you immediately get the sense
that Crystal is a different beast from the other abducted conservatives. Tough, smart, cunning, resourceful, and composed,
she easily wins the audience over by displaying remarkable competence and organic
badassery amid the uniquely dreadful situation she’s in. In addition, she’s complexly layered. While she’s the redneck type and has some
crazy in her, she also reveals a sophisticated and intellectual side later in
the movie. All in all, she’s the
natural, charismatic “strong female” character, and an impeccable main
protagonist to center this charged movie on.
More than just being a movie that
has political themes and metaphors, The
Hunt is a legitimate and delightful action thriller film. Crystal’s characterization and arc play a
huge role in accomplishing that.
I have two nits to pick,
though. First, I found it utterly dumb
of the liberals to provide weaponry for the conservatives – people who live and
breathe firearms – before hunting them. But,
I guess, it was probably out of their hubris.
If so, I wish this was spelled out a little bit more. Second, the movie made a big deal out of
keeping the face of the big bad – Athena (played by Hilary Swank) – a secret
for the first two acts of the movie. As
a result, I began to expect a mindblowing plot twist directly coming out of
this detail or an earth-shattering surprise casting. However, there was nothing like that. There was really no reason why she had to be kept
faceless. I found this an annoyingly
gratuitous choice in the part of the director.
In the end, all things considered,
I extremely enjoyed The Hunt. In fact, it’s one of my favorite films of
2020 so far.
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