The Most Ridiculous Game of Politics

"The Hunt" had an unfortunate and controversial release history. Advertising and its release were delayed after the mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso in early August 2019. Not until March 2020 did Universal decide to finally release it, and then the pandemic hit--resulting in theatres closing throughout the United States and the world. The trailer badmouthed by conservative media and, thus, the president of the United States, only for entertainment critics to largely pan the picture before it was finally released as a video-on-demand, it's hard to think of a movie that has been so mistreated as a political football and a victim of events outside of its control. Granted, I think I got the wrong impression, too, that this would be an earnest horror thriller underlined by confused political commentary, and so I wasn't eager to see it at first when it finally became available. What a pleasant surprise, then, especially as an American presidential election is already under way, that "The Hunt" isn't a serious satire at all, but more of trashy B-picture, campy exploitation--parodying to extremes the left/right, as well as rich/poor, divide in American politics.

The entire reworking of "The Most Dangerous Game" scenario is self-evidently absurd that it's forehead-smacking ridiculous that anyone would've ever thought it would incite violence or that it's even a liberal fantasy, or a conservative one, or whatever. Wealthy, mostly white, elites turning away caviar because they had caviar last night, arguing with each other over who is the most politically correct, in between bragging about their acquaintance to Ava DuVernay (director of "Selma" (2014) and "A Wrinkle in Time" (2018)), is an unflattering caricature for something that's allegedly left-wing wish fulfillment. And that's as if the telltale indication of villainy of delaying showing Hilary Swank's face, as the rich hunters' leader, weren't obvious enough. As for the political right, at least for most of the picture the protagonist, played by Betty Gilpin, is fighting for survival on their side, and the so-called "deplorables" and "rednecks" depicted are more economically relatable if one doesn't fly by private jet. The hunt is largely one of class warfare, too. Sure, they're still cartoons; they all are on both caricatured sides here.

To take "The Hunt" seriously is to fall into the same conspiracy-theory trap of the so-called "Manor-gate"--"gate" because every supposed political scandal in American must be framed by Watergate, apparently--within the movie: a bad joke taken too seriously and a sense of grievance and victimhood becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, each side dehumanizing the other until careers and lives are ruined. In reality, such self-righteous politicking is exasperating. "The Hunt" exploiting that for some laughs and well-staged action scenes, including a particularly entertaining performance from Gilpin, however, may have the opposite effect of deescalating political tensions, or rather the stress inflicted therefrom. It worked for me, at least.