Written by Nick Cuse And Damon Lindelof
Directed by Craig Zobel
Crystal (to Athena): "Now you done fucked up, lady. See, there's two Crystals back home where I live. In fact, I get her mail sometimes."
One of the first films to fall victim to COVID as well as a previous ban due to real life incidents, this biting satire had one goal in mind - punish the ignorant. A goal that's taken to a lot of extremes if we're being honest.
Rich bitch Athena (Hilary Swank) and her co-workers had a chain text message of wanting to round up and hunt people whose opinions they didn't like politically. This test chain got leaked online and one by one, Athena and her co-workers all lost their jobs. Athena ans her friends didn't like that one bit so they decided to take what was intended as a joke and make it into a reality.
As the movie began, eleven people found themselves drugged, gagged and let in field with weapons in order to defend themselves from death. To state the obvious, it didn't take long for these people to get impaled, poisoned, grassed or blown up. It also meant not getting attached to actors like Emma Roberts, Justin Hartley and Ike Barinholtz as they were there to make up the body count and were given nicknames such as Yoga Pants, Trucker and Staten Island.
However while nearly all these victims are cannon fodder, at least one protagonist emerged from the pile. The protagonist being former military lady, Crystal Anne Creasey (Betty Gilpin) who managed to be one step ahead of everyone and proved to be the only threat to Athena's entire plan coming to a rather bloody conclusion.
As a character, Crystal wouldn't feel out of place in a Quentin Tarantino movie as she takes out every obstacle in a rather violent way as she makes her way to Athena's house (don't call it a manor, Athena won't like that). Their smackdown did remind me a lot of the opening fight scene in Kill Bill Volume 1 with both women trading ideological barbs and deadly blows before only one of them emerged as the rue victor of the scheme.
Athena's downfall however wasn't just underestimating Crystal but she did worse and kidnapped the wrong Crystal (same name problems) which she had to die knowing that was also part of her failure. As for Crystal herself, at least she got to survive the crazed game and go home in style while learning a little more about the rich and elite.
- There was an adorable pig named Orwelle that didn't make it while Crystal got the name of Snowball, which went against the assumption that Athena had for her.
- Animal Farm basically made up the motivation of this movie.
- Originally was meant to be released in September 2019 but was delayed til March 2020, due to the Dayton and El Paso mass shootings.
- Chronology: Somewhere post 2016, given how critical Athena was of a certain president at the time.
The Hunt was definitely something of a mixed bag as a movie. The political satire doesn't quite land as well as it should and too many of the characters are blank slates to care about. Saying that though, the fight scenes are excellent and both Betty Gilpin and Hilary Swank carry the movie.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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