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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe\nHunt\u201d found itself in a whirlwind of controversy last year when President Trump\nindirectly said that the film was \u201cmade in order to inflame and cause chaos\u201d in\nthe midst of mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso. While \u201cJoker\u201d opened in\nspite of similar controversy and was rewarded with over $300 million at the domestic\nbox office and an Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix, \u201cThe Hunt\u201d was taken off the shelf\nfor six months. Many speculated that this was done so as not to appear\ninsensitive to the victims of the recent shootings, while others insisted that\nit was Universal heads caving to political pressure. My theory, even at the time,\nwas that Universal wanted to turn this into a \u201cforbidden\u201d film that The Man\nwanted to keep from audiences, so anyone who wants to see it can feel like an\nantiestablishment independent thinker. What they turned it into is an ignorable\nafterthought that failed to capitalize on unsolicited free publicity, which is\nfine because now the film can bomb on its own merits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After\nan unnecessary prologue that somewhat spoils the mystique of the film\u2019s\nvillains, we\u2019re introduced to the film\u2019s heroes. Eleven people wake up in a\nwooded area in the middle of nowhere. They\u2019ve been gagged with devices that, to\nthe movie\u2019s credit, actually look capable of gagging people, as opposed to the\nflimsy bits of tape and cloth I see in other movies. They\u2019re allowed to remove\nthe gags and arm themselves with a cache of weapons nearby. Then they start\ngetting picked off with bullets, explosives, and booby traps. There\u2019s a flurry\nof violence for the next ten minutes, and it goes by so quickly that over half\nthe field doesn\u2019t get the chance to understand what exactly is happening to\nthem or why. Supposedly there\u2019s a lesson being taught, but this movie favors\ngory death scenes over the logic of keeping its characters alive long enough to\ncomprehend the consequences of their actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cName\u201d\nactors playing hunted prisoners include Ike Barinholtz, Betty Gilpin, Justin\nHartley, Emma Roberts, Sturgill Simpson, and Ethan Suplee. Don\u2019t get too\nattached to most of them. Actors playing hunters include Reed Birney, Glenn\nHowerton, Amy Madigan, and Hilary Swank. I will say that the film saves\nOscar-winner Swank for the third act, treating her like a surprise, though as\nfar as I can tell, her name has come up in all the film\u2019s advertising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What seemingly has\neverybody up in arms is that the prisoner characters are generally conservative\nstereotypes and the hunter characters are generally liberal stereotypes, so to\nthe untrained eye, the film seems to celebrate liberals killing conservatives.\nBut no, it just celebrates killing in general, and it stops to make cheap jokes\nabout both liberals and conservatives along the way. Liberals are obsessed with\norganic food and political correctness, conservatives are poorly-educated gun\nnuts. That\u2019s the level of socio-political commentary with this movie, don\u2019t\nbother thinking about it more than the writers did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Hunt\u201d is such a\nlousy movie that there\u2019s a \u201cKill Bill\u201d-inspired kitchen fight at the end, and I\nwas bored all the way through it because I was so uninvested in both\ncharacters. This movie is completely disposable and deserves to be avoided, not\nbecause it\u2019s \u201cdangerous,\u201d but merely because it\u2019s garbage. As for its\nout-of-left-field \u201cmoral\u201d about being careful what you say online, I take it\nabout as seriously as the rest of the movie, but maybe I\u2019ll get lucky here: The\nmakers of \u201cThe Hunt\u201d are going to send me a check for $10 million, I\u2019m sure of\nit!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: D<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Hunt\u201d is now available on\nVideo On Demand. The film is rated R for strong bloody violence, and language\nthroughout. Its running time is 90 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver NOTE: I am reviewing this film because of its recent Video On Demand release following a brief theatrical run. I fully acknowledge and respect the decision to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":46242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}