The Hunt Is On For Those Darn Deplorables (Movie Review)
After a nearly six-month delay, Universal/Blumhouse is releasing Craig Zobel’s lightning rod horror/political satire/action flick, The Hunt. Derided by our current POTUS – based on his shortsighted take on the initial trailer – the story concerns a small group of liberal elites who hunt and kill “deplorables” for sport. Recent shootings in both El Passo and Dayton supposedly made releasing such a potentially polarizing film a deal-breaker, so the film was shelved… until now.
As the citizens of planet Earth fear a real-life viral outbreak more than mass shooters (these truly are the end days folks), the movie is set to hit theaters all over. Was the wait worth it? Will audiences predisposed to either the left or right be offended? As far as this writer is concerned, any kind of movie that ignites a national conversation is a win. Still, one hopes for a film which is as entertaining as it is topical, right? Read on to find out if this Hunt is worth suiting up for…
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I’m calling it. 2019 was the best end of the decade year since 1999. If I had the time, I could have easily made a list of 25 or maybe even 50 films. The MCU came to a conclusion (for now) with the fantastic crowd pleaser and box office record-breaker Avengers: Endgame. Studio pics and one particular foreign flick had economic inequality on the brain with Ready or Not, Knives Out, and Oscar hopeful Parasite. We also saw the best teen film in nearly two decades (Ghost World was the last one). This was also another great year for women standing up for themselves, whether on the stage in Her Smell, on a different kind of stage in Hustlers, or on the streets of New York in Brittany Runs a Marathon. In the end, I try to have lists of ten that exemplify a range of what I love about movies. 2019 did not disappoint.
The triumph of cinema for the 2010s has been varied, to say the least. While streaming became the medium of choice for millions, blockbusters still broke records, and smaller films, whether seen on a phone or big screen, created much by way of discussion. We close out the decade with the old “what is cinema?” question back in the conversation. True cinephiles would simply throw shade, offering their best Billie Eilish “Duh,” but for those who think of movies as merely “entertainment,” Martin Scorsese’s remark about the MCU films not being “real cinema” was a brain-busting WTF moment. Still, the decade began with business as usual (franchises, Oscar-bait). It ended with what felt, for some, like the very survival of more adult fare, which too was an overreaction. Along the way, great strides in diversity arrived by way of #OscarsSoWhite, the success of Black Panther, gender-focused shakeups, and more.
