The Hunt - Review

By Sammi Shuma

Coming out of the theater for this film, I couldn’t really remember what I just saw. Was I not paying attention or did the film’s message not grab my attention? I find that it’s the latter. There is some message The Hunt wants movie goers to engage in, but the film’s execution prohibits the intake of that message. This stems from a few things, mainly the characters and writing. These two elements make up the main chunk of any film, they are the foundation to creating a message. A film’s special effects and imagery can be impressive (as this film tends to be), however without proper writing and characters, movie goers leave the theater with a faded memory of the film.

Please be advised that the remainder of this review will contain spoilers.
The Hunt is a film about rich people (i.e. hunters) hunting less wealthy people (i.e. hunted) for sport. A text chat of the hunters talking about Manor House, the facility where The Hunt takes place, is the inciting incident for the film’s events. The first and second act contain the deaths of many characters, while giving hints to the hunter’s motivation. It comes a question of what is real and who is trustworthy. The film enters the 3rd acts as Crystal (the last hunted played by Betty Giplin) and Athena (the last hunter played by Hillary Swank), choose to fight to the death. The hunter’s motivation is revealed during their struggle. As it turns out, the public started theorizing about Manor House when the text chat was leaked to the public. The public had reason to believe that Manor House is a real place. Thus, Athena and her friends devised a plan to capture these “theorists,” and kill them at Manor House. In other words, the hunters joked about Manor House being real in the chat, therefore making it a reality because the public talked about it. As Athena explains it, they (her and her friends) made Manor House a killing ground (where before it was simply Athena’s vacation house) because the public (i.e. people posting about it online) wanted it.

This reasoning, boiling down to “you wanted it, so I gave it to you,” makes no sense. Who in their right mind would think that people want a killing ground to be real? Just because people theorized and talked about it doesn’t mean they wanted it to be true. People theorize about horrible things all the time, but it only means they think it’s real, not that they want it to be real. The text chat was enough evidence for people to suspect the worst. Even if the theorists wanted Manor House (as the killing ground) to be real, what is motivating Athena to make their desire a reality? For a character to be compelling, they must be motivated by something that is relatable in some way. The audience doesn’t have to agree with how the character is driven if the audience can understand how that character reached their motivation.

Athena doesn’t get anything out of hunting down these people. She isn’t doing this to get a reward, or money, she doesn’t get satisfaction from it either. Athena didn’t even earn the right to be vengeful (if that’s what the film is going for) because she didn’t struggle throughout the film. Why spend all these resources to hunt people who impact you in almost no way what so ever? This could be excused by Athena’s possible insanity, but all her friends were motivated by this reasoning too. Character motivation is crucial when filmmakers want us to care and relate to their characters. We don’t have to like a character or agree with a character’s motivation, we will care about what is happening in the movie if it makes sense. Throughout The Hunt, the audience has no idea why they are on a killing spree. Hints are given throughout, leading us down a path of mystery and intrigue. It gave viewers a reason to keep watching, as a means to understanding the “villains” of this movie. All hope of this film being interesting was lost when Athena explained her motivation.

The Hunt’s story and characters have no time to be interesting. A large majority of the film’s characters die before the end of the first act. Meaning the audience never had a chance to care about half of the film’s characters. We had one scene of the hunters (not including Athena) talking before they were killed by Crystal. Again, nearly another half of the film’s characters are dead before we can care about them. Leaving Athena, Crystal, Gary, and Don. Athena is motivated by something that doesn’t make sense. Crystal is mistrustful, so she never discloses any of her personality on screen. Although she has the most screen time, her main character trait (i.e. not trusting others) prohibits the audience from understanding her. Gary and Don (men who accompany Crystal throughout the film) are caricatures of middle-aged American men and die before they can grow out of that stereotype. The film has too many dispensable characters, meaning a lot of screen time is wasted on things the audience doesn't care about. When a film focuses on characters they not relatable, the message is lost as well. If there was meant to be a message about American politics and a comment of how people treat each other, it was lost because the characters didn’t enforce that message in a meaningful way.

In closing, this film is easily forgettable. It promised so much mystery, but its buildup fell flat. With no redeeming qualities in the film’s characters, I gave up. The visuals and special effects are impressive, they make the action and destruction in this film feel real. However, those are mere additions to the film and do not save the story. If you are looking for an action movie to watch on a Friday night, you're welcome to view this movie. All l I can say now is that you will leave the theater learning nothing and remembering The Hunt as if it were a distant memory.