When President Trump heard about The Hunt, a satirical film whose trailer had just been released, he responded as he usually does with irritations: by sounding off on Twitter.
“Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate!” Trump tweeted last summer. “They like to call themselves ‘Elite,’ but they are not Elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite. The movie coming out is made in order … to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!”
Little had been revealed about the film at the time, but this much was known: The Hunt is a violent, snarky film about America’s political polarization, featuring a Hunger Games-style matchup in which “elites” hunt “deplorables” for fun. (Remember that “deplorables,” which began as a pejorative Hillary Clinton used for Trump supporters, has since become something of a badge of honor.)
Trump interpreted the film as anti-conservative, and he wasn’t alone. Fox contributor Raymond Arroyo, thinking the film takes the side of the “elites,” called it “a revenge fantasy complete with blood splatter.”
The Hunt was set to be released in September, but following both the partisan outrage and the shootings in Dayton and El Paso, Universal opted not to release the film last year. Now, it’s coming out on March 13.
After seeing the film, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro threw some cold water on the outrage, tweeting, “The movie plays on stereotypes on all sides, and it’s unsparing of the liberal elites you see as the hunters in the trailer. Which was obvious even from the trailer, of course.”
The truth about The Hunt is that outraged conservatives were wrong: They’ll enjoy it much more than they might think.
For starters, the film doesn’t exactly hide the ball as to whom it believes the story’s heroes to be. Although the blame for the beginning of the eponymous hunt remains somewhat of an open question, there’s no ambiguity in the characterization of the two sides. Sure, one “deplorable” spews ignorant stereotyping about refugees. But the oligarchic orchestrators of the hunt can’t even stop infighting about politically correct terminology as they debate how best to murder the masses.
The movie becomes most enjoyable once it depletes its first 20 minutes or so of gratuitous violence and then hands the reins of the narrative to Crystal (Betty Gilpin), the de facto protagonist. Though A-listers Hillary Swank, Emma Roberts, and Justin Hartley starred in the bulk of the film’s first round of advertising, Swank only gets a few minutes of total screen time, and the latter two are auxiliary at best.
Gilpin carries the film and, perhaps even more importantly, creates a “deplorable” avatar neither unbelievably idealistic nor offensively laughable. Sure, the 120-pound bombshell’s ability to massacre routinely men twice her size might make her seem a bit of a Mary Sue, but as The Hunt reminds, serving in Afghanistan will give you that prowess. (And no, her likeness to a Kill Bill-era Uma Thurman does not seem accidental.)
Prior to its postponement, The Hunt slyly advertised itself as a dystopian thriller of sorts with some subliminal political commentary. With its release, it thoroughly leaned into its political thesis. But while it truly does cast an affirmative judgment, namely that illiberal “liberals” are not only quick to condemn without understanding, but also that their conflation of speech with violence will incur human costs, The Hunt is more successful as an enjoyable action flick with a side of solid political effort rather than a complete satire.
To its significant credit, The Hunt has dared to wade into a vacuum of storytelling. It boldly aims to show how our ugly culture war could manifest itself if illiberalism continues to swell. But it does little more than signpost at why the “elites” or “deplorables” are deemed as such.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, screenwriter Damon Lindelof and producer Jason Blum say the simplification is intentional, describing the elites vs. deplorables dynamic this way:
The “elites” are wealthy, and most of the “deplorables” boast Southern accents. But neither of these points provide a reason as to why this film had to even be made in the first place.
As Blum and Lindelof put it, the point of the film is, despite its over-the-top style, to comment on something people in America have all experienced. “Ultimately,” they say, “the takeaway of the movie would be that we’ve gotten to a point where we believe the worst in each other, and that is a very dangerous place to be as a country.”
The final product of this half-year-long controversy may not be brilliant, but it’s undoubtedly entertaining and, more radically, refreshingly honest. If anything, The Hunt marks a necessary first step in storytelling terrain that other filmmakers still refuse to traverse.
