The Hunt - 2020
Review: The Hunt (2020) – Savage Satire or Just Savage?
Directed by Craig Zobel and written by Nick Cuse & Damon Lindelof, The Hunt arrived with a mountain of baggage. Initially delayed by Universal following political outrage and mass shootings in 2019, the film was marketed as a dangerously provocative “Trump-era” lightning rod. The controversy painted it as a snuff film for the culture war. The reality? It’s a B-movie with an A-movie budget: gory, gloriously messy, and surprisingly clever—even if it ultimately refuses to pick a side.
Premise
A group of strangers wakes up in a remote, heavily surveilled estate with no memory of how they arrived. They discover they are the prey in a macabre game organized by wealthy elites who hunt humans for sport. As the hunted fight back, the film explores themes of groupthink, sensationalism, and political polarization.
What Works: Betty Gilpin and Gleeful Chaos
Betty Gilpin is nothing short of a revelation. She plays Crystal with a coiled stillness that explodes into shockingly precise violence. Unlike most action heroes, Gilpin doesn’t rely on one-liners or macho posturing. Her deadpan reaction to a hunter’s long-winded justification — “You fucked with the wrong cows” — is both hilarious and genuinely unnerving. She sells the physicality (the fight choreography is grounded and nasty) and the emotional arc of a woman who has been underestimated her whole life and is done pretending. The Hunt 2020
The film’s set pieces are inventive. A gas station massacre, a fake-out “mission” in a foreign country, a brutal hand-to-hand fight inside a moving SUV — each scene is directed with a clear eye for geography and consequence. The violence is cartoonish in scale but grounded in impact; people don’t just fall down, they gurgle, twitch, and bleed out.
The satire lands best when it’s absurdist. The hunters quote Orwell while scrolling Instagram; the hunted debate CNN vs. Fox News while digging a pit trap. One character delivers a monologue about the “real meaning” of Animal Farm just before getting her throat cut. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a Dadaist meme — and when it works, it’s sharp. Review: The Hunt (2020) – Savage Satire or Just Savage
1. Plot Summary: How It Unfolds
The Setup (The Gag) The film opens by establishing a text message chain among a group of wealthy elites. They discuss "The Manor" and a hunt, referencing a conspiracy theory that they hunt "deplorables" for sport.
The Awakening We are introduced to a group of diverse characters waking up in a forest clearing. They find a large wooden crate containing weapons and a pig. As they try to orient themselves, they are picked off one by one by hidden snipers, traps, and explosives. We follow Crystal (Betty Gilpin) midway through the film
The False Protagonists & The Twist The film employs a "false protagonist" narrative structure.
- We follow Crystal (Betty Gilpin) midway through the film. While others panic or try to negotiate, Crystal is calm, tactical, and ruthless.
- Through her journey, we learn the truth about the conspiracy. The elites were joking about hunting humans in a text chain, but the text was leaked to the public, causing a massive scandal and ruining their lives. In retaliation, they decided to actually do the thing they were falsely accused of: hunting people they considered enemies.
The Climax Crystal teams up with another survivor, Gary, and they infiltrate the elites' command post. Crystal systematically takes out the hunters using guerilla tactics. It is revealed that Gary is actually one of the hunters (Athena Stone, played by Hilary Swank) in disguise.
The Final Showdown The film culminates in a brutal, hand-to-hand fight to the death between Crystal and Athena at the elites' mansion. Crystal kills Athena, cleans herself up, takes a fancy pair of shoes, and leaves on a private jet.
