I first want to express condolences to this movie, because I believe it got really badly boned by extraneous circumstances. The Hunt was originally supposed to come out in September last year, but there were some shootings in August, and this winded up affecting the movie’s release due to its subject matter. There was actually a huge controversy over this movie because of all of it, as there was some outrage from President Trump over its existence in the first place. It was actually starting to look like the movie was just going to be outright canceled and never released, which would have been a major loss for free speech. Luckily, though, the movie ended up getting rescheduled for March 2020. It came out, and then a week later all movie theaters got closed down due to the coronavirus pandemic, and although the movie is now available to rent on streaming services, there’s a good chance that many people who might have went to see this in theaters now never will. So, the movie had to get pushed back because of one problem, and then got boned on its actual release.

Anyway, what is The Hunt about? If I had to describe it simply, I’d say that it’s a politically-charged take on The Most Dangerous Game. It’s about a bunch of liberal extremists who kidnap a bunch of conservative extremists that they consider to be “deplorables,” and throw them all in a big field to be hunted down. While the liberals have their fun picking off the conservatives one by one, there’s one woman who has some training that the liberals don’t know about, and she starts to stage a fight back to them.

My recommendation for whether to watch The Hunt kind of depends on what you’d be looking for out of a movie with this premise. I think that if you’re looking for a movie that has a strong, meaningful statement to say about the political divide, The Hunt unfortunately misses the mark, and isn’t as good as it could have been in that department. However, if you’re looking for an entertaining satire on the divide between political parties, then The Hunt is a really fun time.

I’ll go into both aspects a bit deeper. As far as the message of the movie goes, The Hunt kind of just strays away from taking any kind of real stance. This is weird, because on one hand it’s actually something that I quite liked about the movie. I feel like in a lot of Hollywood movies nowadays, there’s a lot of pushing the liberal agenda, and demonizing of the conservative agenda. This is why it’s so interesting that the initial premise paints the conservatives as the victims, and the liberals as the villains, since we don’t usually see that. However, make no mistake about it: The Hunt paints both parties in a pretty negative light. I liked this aspect of The Hunt, because it shows how extremists on either side of the spectrum are really stupid, and I think it fairly portrays this. I can see how that might be disappointing to some who want their own political views justified, but I thought it worked. However, the downside is that because of this The Hunt never really takes any kind of stance towards anything, and it ends up feeling confusing just what the movie is trying to say. For me, the biggest example of this is a plot twist that’s revealed in the climax of the movie about our main protagonist. It’s not like it doesn’t work on a storytelling level, but it’s unfortunately a huge cop-out, and ends up really cheapening any sort of potential message the movie could have had. I wasn’t really a fan of this twist, and thought it came off as cheap and lazy writing.

The flip side to all of this is that if you’re looking for a simple, entertaining satire on our current political climate, The Hunt is a lot of fun. The movie portrays most of its characters as one-dimensional caricatures that are just spouting their ideologies, and so it’s funny to laugh at these people. I think where The Hunt finds its largest amount of entertainment value, though, is in its lead protagonist. Betty Gilpin plays the lead role in this movie. I’m aware that she has a pretty big role in the Netflix show GLOW, but I’ve personally never seen her in anything before this. However, I found her immensely enjoyable to follow along in this movie. She plays such an unconventional action here in it, and so I was always intrigued by the weird way she acts throughout the movie. She’s actually really funny, in a way that just comes off as natural, and it’s a rare quality to see in a badass character archetype like hers. She makes the movie so enjoyable, and I think it’s worth watching just for her fun character.

So, like I said, my recommendation for whether or not to watch The Hunt kind of just depends on what you’re looking for out of it. I think it’s worth watching simply for its entertaining lead, fun premise, and how much it pokes fun at the ridiculousness of political extremists. However, I can also recognize that the movie had the potential to actually be about something important, and it seems like it wants to skate towards that without ever wanting to fully commit to actually taking a stance on anything. So, take that how you will. The Hunt isn’t any kind of amazing must-see movie, but I had a really good time with it personally.

3.5/5