The Hunt Review: An Entertaining Political Satire Worth a Watch


The Hunt was embroiled in a lot of controversies before it came out because, apparently, it talks about politics in a not so great light. Even though there are no great lights when it comes to politics, but hey, I digress. The poster for the movie says “The most talked about movie of the year is one that no one’s actually seen.” Which is typical for angry people who don’t know why they’re angry (remember Padmaavat ?)

So anyway, The Hunt was supposed to release on September 27, 2019, but due to the aforementioned controversies it was pushed to March 13, 2020. The film was directed by directed by Craig Zobel and produced by Blumhouse Productions. According to writer Damon Lindelof and Zobel, the film serves as a satire for the political divide that exists between the American right and left. It stars Betty Gilpin, Ike Barinholtz, Amy Madigan, Emma Roberts, Ethan Suplee, and Hilary Swank.

I was kidnapped

The Hunt starts off with a text message exchange that should serve as a reminder of what’s to come. And then someone gets stabbed by a pen in the neck and then a shoe in the eye aboard an airplane. While you get over that, you find more people come to their senses in a field, with ball-gags over their mouths. Pretty soon most of them die and it’s a bloodbath.

The Hunt has loads of kills which makes it fun and entertaining to watch. There’s always something or the other happening that keeps you entertained. Not one moment of the movie will get you bored, or make you feel like, ok let’s skip this now.

There’s also this weird ambiguity for the first few minutes of the movie where you would be confused as to who the lead character is. Which is great, really. There were new characters introduced few minutes and the story starts following them. You get invested in the characters thinking that, yep this is it, until they die. So that also adds to the entertainment factor. When we do get to our main character, Crystal, well, she’s one of the most likeable characters I have seen in movies. Actually, most characters are very likeable. There wasn’t anyone who was too annoying, especially because no one stayed alive long enough. And that’s honestly great.

It’s a joke

I honestly didn’t get why The Hunt faced so much controversy. The movie is a satire and thus there are moments and scenes which pokes fun at people and are meant to be taken in humour. Which is probably a problem in today’s world, considering how no one can understand these things, and everything is taken too seriously. Some things just aren’t serious and this is one of them. The Hunt can be watched as an action-comedy, if you will – that’s how I watched it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Moving on, there was a scene at the last where Athena and Crystal fight each other. And we stan two strong women in a hand-to-hand combat. It was funny and very entertaining, and the fight sequences were...

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