The Hunt (2020 movie)

Category: Action horror/political satire

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Whoever believes this movie is controversial and offensive has probably only heard other people's opinions about the movie, but not actually seen the movie itself because the reality is that unless you are the kind of person who is on constantly on the look-out for things to be offended by, this movie really isn't offensive or that controversial.

Yes, the movie pokes fun at internet social justice warriors. Yes, this movie does have the Conservatives/right-wing people as "the good guys". But in essence, The Hunt is essentially The Most Dangerous Game written to be a satire of the internet age.

To summarise this movie, a bunch of wealthy people forcibly kidnap 12 people who fit the redneck and/or right-wing stereotype and put them in a reserve to be hunted, and just when the good guys think they've reached safety, the lengths the bad guys go to is exposed (and then taken care of) in gruesomely hilarious ways. But the tough good girl (played by Betty Gilpin) turns the tables on her captors and eventually goes one-on-one with the tough bad-girl (Hilary Swank in fine form!), a little bit of exposition is thrown in to help things make sense to the audience, and cue a pretty bad-ass ending.

The biggest plot hole, though (in a movie that is wildly unplausible in and of itself) is that the people who were accused of doing the thing ended up doing the thing they were initially accused of doing. This is explained near the end where the tough bad girl is explaining to the tough good girl that the careers of the people involved were ruined and that the foolish talk of the conspiracy theorists made the reality happen - so I can't help, but think - this is a really convoluted way of getting back at someone.

I certainly got a laugh out of this, the special effects are quite well done…it's just that this is not a fantastic movie.

Star rating: 3.5/5