The Hunt (2020)

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Posted By: brian@brianschell.com February 4, 2022

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

People are being hunted for sport. Because there was a phony conspiracy theory that people were being hunted for sport. So they hunt people for sport to show them that people aren’t being hunted for sport. Wait, what? It’s complicated. It’s a political satire of very extreme liberals vs. very extreme conservatives. Who comes out ahead? Nobody really.

Synopsis

Six people text message each other about hunting down Deplorables in the woods. Next thing we know, the group of snobs are on an airplane. Suddenly a stewardess freaks out, “One of them’s awake!” The doctor tells him to lay down and then stabs him in the neck. Finally, a woman kills the man with a high heel in the eye.

Later, multiple people awaken outdoors with gags padlocked on their heads. Several of these gagged people converge on a box in the middle of a field. Inside the box is a tiny pig and a big selection of weapons.

Abruptly, someone out in the woods starts shooting at them. There are death traps in the field. And landmines. The number of “players” drops quickly. Three of them make it to a gas station, but the people running the station aren’t exactly helpful.

The radio sounds; a couple more are on the way. The next woman to arrive, however, turns the tables on the shopkeepers. Crystal teams up with another guy named Gary who tells that he read that the liberal elites kidnap and hunt down people. He read it on social media. They hop aboard a moving freight train to escape.

The train is stopped by soldiers. There’s a bunch of refugees on the train including one guy who is one of the hunters. He dies explosively, but Gary and Crystal end up in a refugee camp. They also meet up with Don, another “player.”

A government guy from the embassy picks them up, and Crystal throws him out of the car and runs him over – she knows he was a phony. They find Gary dead in the trunk along with some money and a map. Crystal tells a messed-up version of the tortoise and the hare story.

Meanwhile, back where everything started, the liberal elites have their base. Crystal and Don return and start killing liberals. Soon, Crystal is all that’s left— er, right. One of them tells Crystal where to find Athena, the leader.

Flashback to one year ago, where Athena was CEO of a company that got hacked. Her superiors read her the text discussion from the opening sequence. She says the whole thing about hunting people for sport was just a joke they were playing; it’s not real. Who would possibly think it was real? Well, extreme conservatives that’s who – it’s become a conspiracy theory on the web. They tell her she has to resign like everyone else on the text message.

So she makes it real to punish those dumb and gullible enough to think it was real. She and her team track down bloggers, podcasters, and other people who were spreading stories about “Manorgate.” We see the selection process for their victims.

Soon, Athena and Crystal are face to face in the Manor. Athena says the Tweets and text messages really were a joke; after the fallout, they started doing it for real. Crystal tells her that she’s not the person who did the tweet; it’s all mistaken identity. She knows the other Crystal from her town that Athena meant to take.

The two fight in the kitchen. For a long, evenly matched time. They stab each other and discuss “Animal Farm” until Athena dies.

Commentary

It’s clearly political satire with liberals versus conservatives, and they both get slammed pretty hard here. The deaths are generally cool and interesting, often coming out of nowhere. There’s a lot of blood spatter and gore mixed in with good jokes.

It’s all fun and games until Hilary Swank shows up and starts explaining things, then all the fun drops off. The final fight goes on for way too long. It’s an entertaining and pretty original movie with an ending that’s on the weak side. Though in the end the tortoise does win the race. Or is it the hare that wins?