President Trump’s least favorite ultraviolent satire finally hits theaters.
Did I mention the symbolic pig?
Its a great survival thriller, and a disappointing political comedy.
Credit: Patti Perret/Universal
They’re in a most dangerous game, an old-fashioned human hunt rebooted for post-2016 hysteria.
The confused victims are vocal workaday Republicans with ragebox social media accounts.
Typical headshot one-liner: “For the record, a–hole, climate change isreal.”
And the first act has five acts, cheekily shifting perspective, establishing rules and breaking them.
Theories scream over bullets.
Someone quotes George Orwell.
Then Gilpins character arrives, nameless for a good long while, her manner quiet and eerily still.
She must be tired and scared.
All Gilpin wants is a cigarette.
Imagine Clint Eastwoods squint and Tina Feys eyeroll: Shes that cool, and that funny.
Theyve reunited with director Craig Zobel, who helmed a few excellentLeftovershours.
The dialogue has the delightful Lindelof kick, self-aware enough to know that the audience is expecting self-awareness.
Ethan Suplee plays a loudmouth podcaster named Gary, who rambles on about a meme-y Manorgate conspiracy.
Are you f—s trying toteach us a lesson?
he asks his tormentors, something I always want aSawcharacter to say.
Just what are those f—s trying to do?
The zigzag plot reflects Lindelofs love for narrative trickery.
We sort of know whats happening or do we, or do we dont not?
But the story rips freely from trending topics.
A prologue text chain references our ratf—er-in-chief.
Sean Hannity gets a shoutout, and so does Ava DuVernay.
Theres some timeline jazz.
So, like: America.
And, yes, controversy.
Only a stupid dumb idiot with terrible taste would mistake the everything-is-crazy goofery ofThe Huntfor a sincere partisan message.
InThe Hunt, there are very un-fine people on both sides.
Glenn Howerton plays a business-class gasbag disappointed when private jets dont have figs on demand.
Ike Barinholtz is a Staten Island bro who brags mid-hostage crisis about the seven guns he owns.
Murderous liberals wokeshame each other.
Fleeing conservatives find time to say nasty things about refugees.
Its funny at times, but only everSNLFunny, with beats so obvious you could sing along.
Honestly, I dont think their screenplay has much to say about politics.
TheHunts on firmer ground as a horror-comedy riff on the escape-the-wilderness-killzone tale.
Zobel finds a nice mix of looney-tunes farce and legitimate tension.
Youve met this archetype before, the unexpectedly prepared prey-turned-predator.
Think Sharni Vinson inYoure Next, or Samara Weaving inReady or Not.
Once upon a time, in the halcyon days ofLostadoration, he was a cheerful and approachable online presence.
That show ended in 2010 a lost age of Zuckerberg worship and techno-triumphalism.
Lindelof saw the dark heart of social media early, besieged by fan rage until he finally left Twitter.
No surprise, maybe, thatThe Leftoverscaught all kind of Trump Era vibes way ahead of schedule.
Andas John Oliver recently noted, the fatality rate for COVID-19 corresponds directly toThe Leftovers two-percent disappearance rate.
The big disappointment withThe Huntis that it never feels so ahead of the curve.
Its a complicated form of 2016 catharsis, condemning recognizable pastiches of the left and the right.
Their own words weaponize against them.
Unserious statements provoke dead serious reactions.
Context collapses jokes into insults, and throwaway chatter becomes manifesto prose.
Lindelof left Twitter and created the best work of his career.
The deeply buried tragedy ofThe Huntis the suspicion that nobody gets to leave Twitter anymore, not ever.
Is she recovering from the last few minutes, or the last few years?B+
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