The Hunt

The first half is a nice and unpredictable semi-parody that relies on the audience’s familiarity with the rules of the genre, but it’s not afraid to overturn them for fun (and it doesn’t feel inappropriate). In the second half, after the most important cards have been revealed, the film falls into its own mirror and, despite the persisting quality of the craftsmanship and the insight, it can no longer surprise. The heroine is convincingly badass, but Hilary Swank’s attractive character (metaphorically and literally) had some more potential and I would have liked a bolder ending, given the concept of rewriting the expectations. Overall, though, it’s surprisingly good. 65% (22/03/2020)

The Hunt is cross-genre bullshit that aims to please by going against the grain, but it ends up being just an action-revenge B-movie with comical brutality. However, the actress in the lead role is uniquely atypical. The most typical genre characters deliberately come in with a roar in the first few minutes so that the film is surprising in its exposition, setting the viewer up for a fresh experience, which may or may not suit you. (29/07/2020)

I'm pretty convinced that the scariest word of the 21st century will be 'satire'. There are bad scripts, and then there are scripts that are also bad but try to convince us that they are not by pointing out how aware they are of the genre rules they are not afraid to knowingly break. When you then combine this insufferable arrogance with an ironic statement about contemporary society, you'd have to be a real genius to get anything out of it other than a painfully spasmodic rant where even the script must have been written on Twitter, complete with hashtags. And it's probably not worth mentioning that Zobel is no genius. Aside from the final, surprisingly well done and distinctive fight scenes, it's mind-numbingly boringly shot in a typical Blumhouse production where everyone is wearing clean pressed clothes, the set is full of obviously artificial objects, and when he tries to shock, he does it with the aid of laughably digital blood. Lindelof is a filmmaker who based his entire screenwriting career on trying to emulate Joss Whedon, the king of bullshit genre self-reflections (God how I hate them), but didn't have enough talent to pull it off. Now he's just trying to make a buck off of the social and cultural internet wars, where he's trying to prove his ability to balance on a spectrum of opinion that’s pathetic. Plus, when you subtract the context from the film, notice how each scene is completely nonsensically constructed, how people behave in it, and what moves the plot along. This movie is sloppy AF. Too bad for Betty Gilpin, who the whole time gives the impression of either not being able to believe what just came out of her mouth or that somebody else is strung up in her face. She's actually quite funny when it comes to that. Like, for real. (22/08/2020)

I have no idea why horror is listed as one of the film's genres. Black comedy fits much better. Anyway, I had fun while wading through all that blood, and I don't care what it says about me. After all, when the Americans are able to make fun of all their taboo topics once every ten years, I’m ecstatic about how different it is from the constantly celebrated patriotism, riding on a giant wave of pathos. What's more, I loved Crystal’s approach, and I still have to think about how frustrating it must be when you're talking to someone whose head (or at least a substantial part of it) is gone all of a sudden. The film definitely deserves to have a higher rating. (30/05/2020)

We've already had manhunting as a "hobby for the elite", but The Hunt takes this theme from a slightly different perspective. The film offers plenty of black-humour scenes and a pretty solid unpredictability – you really don't know who will die, when and how, which is a big plus. On the whole, I was bothered by the passages with too much talking that unnecessarily stretched out the running time. The Hunt is one of those films where I can understand any rating. Otherwise, Betty Gilpin pushed the envelope a little too hard at times with her bad-ass-look, whatever. (22/05/2020)