The Hunt || A Movie 'Woke' Liberals Should Watch

The Hunt || Movie Review

Only the 'woke' liberals will understand the literature, amma right bois?

The Hunt directed by Craig Zobel and stars people whom I won't name because it will be a spoiler. 

This movie inspired a lot of controversy in America and I still don't understand why. It all that Hillary, Trump, 'Racist' Hollywood, blah blah bullshit. As an Indian, or even as a left or right winged guy, I don't find anything that is even remotely offensive in this movie. Rather I think this movie perfectly reflects the current creation of online echo chambers and nicely tries to criticize it. 

' Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are -- or how they got there. In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, ruthless elitists gather at a remote location to hunt humans for sport. ' This is part of the official premise of the movie which I have partly pasted because the movie was and other movies are always fun to me when I go in without any ideas about the plot or the actors.

The Hunt is one of my favorite movies to come out this year and I think everyone should watch this movie. The less I talk about this movie is better due to the spoilers.

What I Liked?

• The Plot & The Direction

I'm having some painful flashbacks of The Hunger Games.

As I said I will not go into the plot. It's a mix of slasher, thriller, and horror and works very well. The first twenty or so minutes of the movie is full of surprises and twists. I liked the decisions that were taken by the director and writer here.

The film is filled with gore, violence, and murder so it is not a kids' movie. The gore and violence don't come off as unnecessary and fit well within the story.

Will not ring a bell to the Indian audience.

The better parts of the film all lie in its social or political satire and commentary. Sometimes its subtle while sometimes it's on the nose but I found it to be very apt. The filmmakers knew what they were doing with the script and the dialogues in the movie are really what I see in my social circle, people circle jerking and creating and living in echo chambers detached from the real things, may it be liberals or conservatives. I loved these commentaries. 

The movie rips socialism, liberalism, right-wing ideologies, feminism, cultural appropriation, etc, etc and I love the way they do it. Dialogue writing is genius at times.

• The Acting

Who is this guy?

To prevent any spoilers I will restrain myself from using any names. The lead in this movie has done an absolutely amazing job at carrying the whole movie and making it funny, serious and believable every time. The lead is just a badass and I hope the performance they delivered here will give them more recognition in Hollywood because I have a lot of expectations from this person now.

There were many new faces in this movie that I never had seen in action but their acting was good.

• Action Sequences & Camerawork

This is not what it seems.

The action sequences were great, the way they were choreographed, performed and shot was excellent. There are two specific sequences that I loved which I can't talk about. 

What I did not like?

The runtime of the movie is very short, just one and a half hour movie. I think it needed at least fifteen or so minutes extra in the early half of the movie. This would have made the film more thrilling. 

The satire is good but the movie will not make sense or appeal to a wider audience because of its stand on what it's trying to make fun of. The movie remains ambiguous in that sense and thus divides the audience on whether to like it or hate it. I personally have no problem with it.

Final Verdict

To be honest, we all are hypocrites when it comes to ideologies. We all come up with our half-assed knowledge gained from the internet, from some five minute YouTube video and act as if the 'woke'- est guy in our circle. Well, this movie makes fun of us all and I love that it dares to bring hypocrisy of a certain group out. It dared to do so and even Universal Studios agreed to release it.

It's not going to change the world or inspire violence or a revolution. It sets to mock the hypocrisy and it does that excellently. I think every internet or social media warrior, may he be a lib or a conservative should watch this film. 

Even if the satire doesn't hit you you will at least be having a fun time with a great thriller movie. For general viewing, this is a better Hunger Games and a better The Purge.