Betty Gilpin

(On Cable TV, December 2020) There are two movies duelling it out in The Hunt, and while one of them is a decent horror thriller featuring a capable heroine and two solid acting performances, it has the misfortune of being wrapped in a dumb argumentative take on American politics that feels designed to exasperate everyone. The best part of the film isn’t the dip into the familiar “rich people hunting protagonists” trope – Ready or Not did it far more successfully, and The Hunt isn’t interested in being subtle about its politics. No, The Hunt is at its best when it plays with viewers’ expectations: The first half-hour has a clever structure in which we jump from one protagonist to another, convinced that they’re worth cheering for until they inevitably get killed by the hunters. The film arguably gets better once it finally reveals its real heroine, a whip-smart veteran fighting to escape death, and understands what has led her to this place. On a strict execution basis, The Hunt doesn’t do any better than during its action sequences, with tight editing and suspense compensating for an excessive level of violence. Alas, the film takes a sharp and noticeable nosedive once it reveals its secrets and engages with political material: the script’s biggest idea is in making its antagonists a bunch of frustrated, ostracized left-wingers taking revenge on their right-wing online critics. While we can understand the desire to tweak expectations, it simply doesn’t work and makes the film feel like a puerile “both sides!” argument. (The film was famously delayed for months once uninformed online pundits got hold of the film’s premise, lending it undeserved gravity.) Fortunately, the film does have a late-third-act resurgence once its protagonist, played by Betty Gilpin (in a terrific performance) goes toe-to-toe with Hilary Swank during a vicious, well-paced hand-to-hand combat that trashes most of a kitchen. It’s almost enough to forgive a terrible script that outstays its welcome the longer it doesn’t delve into its suspense set-pieces. Unfortunately, they’re not quite enough to overcome the film’s real and unpleasant flaws: I can’t bring myself to recommend The Hunt even for curiosity’s sake, so stupid does it sound when it’s trying to grapple with more complex ideas.