Director: Craig Zobel
Distributor: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 90 minutes
The Hunt (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
When introduced to the October releases of Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, we saw Betty Gilpin on the cover of The Hunt. The Hunt felt like a somewhat meaningless title that could be literally about hunting animals, or figuratively when it comes to hunting a certain criminal, but it ended up being a movie in which rednecks are hunted for sport. We first saw the trailer and it actually quite amused us, but we didn’t know how good the actual movie would turn out to be, as this one actually flew under the radar when it came to theatre releases. Intrigued, we saw the quirky Gilpin grace the cast of many familiar faces.
While we could write down an elaborate plot for The Hunt, it’s actually quite simple. You get the introduction of a text conversation between clearly some of the elite citizens of a random part of America. These talk about killing ‘deplorables’ at a certain mansion. Fast forward a scene or two, and you see a lot of random people waking up, gagged, to convene in a field where a wooden crate is waiting for them. Inside, in a Hunger Games kind-of fashion, they will find weapons. The clearly shaken people do not know why there are weapons being offered to them, but when you see the first person’s brains blown out by a rifle in the distance, they realize they are being hunted for whatever reason. We immediately notice that many of the cast will be for malicious pleasure, while Crystal (Betty Gilpin) will clearly be the leading lady of this gory flick.
The flow of the movie is actually quite perfect. The movie gives you information when you need information, but for the most part, it’s a rapid succession of action sequences, politically correct babble, redneck-worth speeches and a lot of gore. You have more than enough information to zone out, watch this movie, relax, discuss certain political views and of course, see the carnage unfold on your modest home setup. We do feel that certain characters could have done with a bit of a background story or just a bit more information, as we couldn’t perfectly pick out each stereotype that is supposedly represented.
Acting performances are actually a lot better than expected after reading the short description before getting our review copy. You will see many familiar faces, some a bit more relevant than others, but most have the arduous task of actually depicting a certain stereotype. Some are conspiracy theorists, full-blown rednecks, gun-owning zealots while on the other side of the fence, we’ll find a playboy millionaire, a feminist, a very anti-racist couple and so on. It’s basically the two extremes where hillbillies are being hunted by extremely PC rich people.
The Blu-ray version of The Hunt comes with three special features, only totaling an additional ten minutes of content. You’ll be able to view the thoughts behind creating the movie, as well as see some special and practical effects being tailored to perfection, and lastly, there’s a snippet about the final fight scene. The extras are amusing and quite nice to watch, but they should have been a bit meatier in content, as there was a lot more to explore.
Conclusion
The Hunt is an entertaining piece of cinema, but also somewhat of a one-trick pony. The movie will provide you with a fun movie experience during a dull evening, it even serves as a proper parody of today’s society in terms of political views, and at certain points, it was a borderline comedy, rather than its intended action, horror, thriller description. If you love action movies, a fair amount of gore and love to make fun with the extreme ends of the political spectrum, you really can’t go wrong with this flick.
The Hunt (Blu-ray) - Movie Review,
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