HUNT CLUB: When Hunting People Goes Wrong

This movie had echoes of past greats such as The Most Dangerous Game or even The Pest (starring John Leguizamo) but hunting people for sport is really where the similarities ended. Hunt Club focused far more on a group of men oozing toxic masculinity and waxing philosophical about the way things used to be and the need for each and every one of them to reclaim their place in the world, supposedly taken by women.

The setup is easy enough to follow; Carter (Casper Van Dien) has started an all-male club on an island where (for what must have been years now) they would trick women into being part of a hunt by promising them the possibility of winning $100,000. I know I could use that kind of money, so bring it on. Of course, the money is all a ruse and a way to get the women to agree to be brought to the island where the men would pick one of them to be their victim as they’re hunted for sport. Okay, maybe I don’t need the money that badly.

All of this is established rather quickly through a series of scenes featuring men sitting around being what they feel men should be like. Complaining about the state of the world and how men need to get back to being men no matter the cost. Of course that couldn’t sustain an entire runtime while still keeping our attention so a semi-interesting revenge plot was layered in starting around the middle of act two until the end.

What Hunt Club got right

Quite simply, the thing that jumped off the screen to me first was the cast. This movie is dripping with players that I’ve loved over the years, from Mena Suvari as our main protagonist, Cassandra, to Mickey Rourke as the “animal” wrangler, Virgil. They were of course fantastic. Maya Stojan who played Tessa was especially good as the butt-kicking girlfriend of Cassandra. She was a mini action star who knew kung fu and wasn’t afraid to use it.

My favorite performances from the movie however came from the London brothers. Jeremy and Jason London played two vile human beings (who eventually get what they deserve) but they played them so well. Preston and Teddy were part of a side story with an ending I will not ruin here. If you watch this movie for any reason, let it be to see what happens to these two, it is very satisfying, to say the least. That being said, a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to the acting came from those characters. I want a Preston and Teddy movie.

The last thing I’ll mention is the runtime. As with a lot of the movies I’ve watched lately it clocks in at just around 90 minutes. I’m really enjoying some of these shorter films. Don’t get me wrong, I do love an epic as much as the next guy but sometimes it’s good to just sit down for an hour and a half than be able to move on with my day. In that regard, Hunt Club nailed it. Not every movie needs to be three hours long.

What Hunt Club got wrong

I want to say the first thing it got wrong is the story but that isn’t quite fair. It did have a very interesting idea, what went so wrong seemed to be the execution of that core idea. The film set out to highlight the dangers and awfulness of toxic masculinity but in the telling of the tale, it almost glorified it as opposed to satirizing it. The idea was definitely there and strong but just not handled in a way that made it clear what they were going for, and that leads me to the next thing (very well I might add).

The tone was a little bit all over the place here. It often wasn’t clear if I was watching a thriller or a horror movie or a satire or a mystery. Elizabeth Blake-Thomas directed the film and has a history of quality and storytelling that touches on vital issues, Unseen is a great example of this. Here that seemed to get lost in the plot (or lack of a real plot to be honest) the revenge tale that kicked off in the middle of the second act almost seemed forced. The characters making decisions that no normal person would ever make put it in the realm of satire but it refused to be placed in that box and suffered because of that.

Overall Hunt Club seemed to suffer from a lack of a clear vision. There were a lot of elements at play but the thing it needed to solidify it as a cohesive piece just wasn’t in place. It really lacked that one element that let us know if it was winking at the genre it was diving headfirst into or if it was deadly serious as a part of it. Again, the tone wasn’t set and we were all left wondering.

Conclusion:

These days I really am a fan of shorter movies most of the time and in the case of Hunt Club, I honestly think they could have shaved an additional fifteen minutes off the first and second act collectively. A 75-minute runtime would have eliminated some of the more problematic moments in those acts and got us to the revenge tale and reveals much sooner. The movie spent too much time making us hate the male characters when in reality we all got to that point very quickly. We didn’t need scene after scene showing us who they were, it was apparent as soon as they arrived on the island.

If you watch this movie as a satire of toxic masculinity coupled with a female-empowered revenge tale it almost works. Almost. It turns out to be an uncomfortable 90 minutes filled with dialogue that no person would say, and it’s being spoken by actors I usually quite enjoy. There was a movie here but somewhere along the way it got buried in vitriol and forgot to be entertaining.

Hunt Club will be released on April 6, 2023!

Watch Hunt Club