PLOT SUMMARY: Twelve Strangers are chosen to be hunted. Only the strong will survive.
If you’ve not seen the trailer of The Hunt like me, you’ll be surprised by the twists that keep coming from the opening scene itself.
For me, the best twist was not in the story, but the way the opening scene is directed and the way you keep trying to guess whose story will we be following.
We see Emma Roberts and think, oh, so she’s the protagonist. Two seconds later, she’s shot in the head. The camera shifts to another actor and we think again, so this is going to be his story.
Again, no.
By the time we figure things out and who is going to survive and if it is a story about a single person or many, we are pulled into another question, who is the enemy? Who can be trusted? And most importantly, why is this happening?
THE HUNT Movie Plot
The story begins in a plane with an obnoxious passenger giving unnecessary details about champagne to a stewardess who couldn’t care less. The next instant, she has spilt the champagne and was horrified by something behind the passenger. It is a heavyset man, staggering inside and wondering what he is doing on a plane.
The other passengers freak out and try to subdue him. He fights back and demands answers. Finally, a woman awakes, pulls away from her eye mask and heads to the cabin. She uses her heel to stab the man in the eye and orders for the man to be put away with the others.
The others in question are unconscious and awake in a clearing in the middle of nowhere. On top of everything, they have a metal bar in their mouths and a strap on which there’s a lock.
The blonde woman walks ahead and finds a woman by a stream who is tearing of her name tag. Ahead there are more people awakening, all with gags in their mouths. They find a big wooden crate and inspect it but only one man is willing to use the crowbar provided to open it.
The others run for cover, expecting a blast or a trap. The crate opens to reveal a pig in clothes running out. On the cover is a small brown envelope. The blonde woman picks it up and finds the keys.
She calls a man in front of her and opens his gag. He reciprocates and they all open each other’s gags.
Another man finds something else in the large crate, a display of guns and knives. All of them arm themselves and soon enough, shots are fired. The captives run for cover but are taken down one by one. There are traps laid out everywhere, mines, arrows, grenades. Soon enough, five people lose their lives but the way they do will make you chuckle. Why? Because clearly their attackers are a little inexperienced and have gone out of the way to get the eleven people killed. The twelfth man had died on the plane.
Three captives escape by jumping over the fence and come to a gas station run by an elderly couple. While the woman gorges on powdered doughnut holes, one man makes the call while the other looks around.
Learning they are in Arkansas, the man making the call is shocked and tells the police to get help. It takes a couple of seconds for us to realize help isn’t coming because the person on the other end doesn’t seem to know how to trace the call.
The woman eating doughnut holes starts foaming in the mouth.
The truth is revealed: the elderly couple is in it too and uses a shotgun to kill off the three.
Their blood is cleaned and the couple receives a message on their radio that another one, snowball, is on their way to them.
It is the woman who was near the stream. She walks over to the gas station but doesn’t ask where she is like the others. In a dazed state, she asks for cigarettes.
The elderly couple is initially stumped that she isn’t freaking out but then hand her a pack of cigarettes while telling her she is in Arkansas. The woman has hidden some cash in her socks and produces the note. It is when she receives change that she realizes the couple is a liar.
She gets in full action mode and kicks the old woman telling her that cigarettes aren’t supposed to be too expensive in Arkansas. She then uses the shotgun to kill the couple.
Taking the gun with her she finds a car outside and takes out the license plate to find the real one that tells her she’s in Europe. The car is also rigged to blast when opened and she seems to notice it quite easily. Taking the walker-talkie she positions herself behind the trees and waits as a drone is sent to figure out her location.
Before she can react, the drone is shot down. A man enters her view with a gun and the woman gets up and recognizes him as one of the captives. He introduces himself as Gary and she tells him her name, Crystal. She also tells him that he shouldn’t have shot down the drone and alerted the hunters of their location. She then leads him to train tracks.
It becomes a little obvious now that Crystal clearly has had some sort of military training with the way she behaves.
They see a train approaching and Crystal is the first one to get on. She helps Gary in and they find the carriage filled with illegal immigrants. Gary gets suspicious because it is too much of a coincidence that the one carriage they picked to get in had illegal immigrants.
Crystal is dubious because one of them has a baby. Soon enough the train is stopped by the army and the illegals are caught. Crystal and Gary merge with them. During the interrogation, Crystal finds out she is in Croatia. Gary goes berserk when he finds out one of the illegal immigrants is actually one of the hunters and uses a grenade to kill him.
Crystal is introduced to another captive, Don who had told the soldiers the same story but was not believed about being hunted.
Crystal and Don are picked up by the American envoy who while driving them, asks what they think they did wrong that caused this situation to arise wherein they are being hunted.
Crystal gets suspicious, and holds onto the support, turns around and kicks him out of the car.
Don isn’t convinced that the envoy was the enemy until they find Gary in the trunk. They realize they cannot trust anyone. Crystal tells Don a version of the Hare and Turtle race story. Instead, it is about the box turtle and the jackrabbit. In this version, the turtle does win, but the Jackrabbit is so peeved he goes to the box turtle’s house while he’s having a celebratory dinner with his family, and kills his wife and children first. Then he kills the box turtle.
Don is confounded as to whether they are the turtle or the jackrabbit.
At the hunters’ hideout, everyone is chilling and gloating about their victories. They see a pig running in and recognize him as Orville.
THE HUNT Ending Explained with Spoilers!
The pig was sent in by Don but the hunters were so on their guard, they shoot the pig. While they are distracted, Crystal comes in and takes them all down. The sergeant asks if she has served in the military and Crystal confesses she was in Afghanistan.
The walkie-talkie goes on and a woman called Athena asks Don if everyone is dead. Crystal is confused as to whether Don is also one of them. When Don doesn’t put down his gun, she reluctantly shoots him.
The sergeant, before dying, tells Crystal that Athena has been training for eight months. Crystal is hardly taken aback by this knowledge.
She seeks out Athena at her manor as per the sergeant’s instructions. At the manor, Crystal gives up her gun and we are told the story of how Athena has lost her job as head of the company because her racist messages were leaked.
She and her friends lost their jobs because a few people online commented about them. These people were the captives. It was all for revenge. The people with a different political stance had caused the names of all the hunters to be tarnished so they were all picked on purpose.
Athena is in her kitchen as she meets Crystal. Making a grilled sandwich she tells Crystal about all the research she has done. Crystal informs her that she got the wrong Crystal and that is not her life story Athena had researched on.
The two go on melee attack mode. After the house is pretty much trashed, Athena uses the blade of her food processor to stab Crystal. Crystal, in turn, pulls Athena to her and stabs her.
The two women lie on the floor and Athena pleads with Crystal to tell her if she did get it wrong. Crystal replies with Yes ma’am.
Afterwards, Crystal gets up and eats the sandwich. Athena is dead. Crystal uses the torch to fix her injuries. Then she dresses up in Athena’s clothes, takes her dog and heads to the plane.
The stewardess and pilot are shocked to see Crystal but one look at the gun in her hand and they are ready to fly. Crystal invites the stewardess to drink champagne and eat caviar.
The movie ends but we wonder what Crystal will do next. Will she report this incident to the authorities? Can she trust anyone anymore?
The story had some exciting high points, especially when we try to guess who will survive and who won’t. There’s a bit of sarcastic humour inserted into the dialogues that will make you chuckle.
Regardless of your political stance, you will ask yourself if there truly is something as freedom of speech.
One crazy remark by someone online and a few people lost their high position jobs. At the end of the day, it isn’t about the freedom to express yourself, rather the good, clean image that we must all live by. No matter what your actual character and thoughts are.
Scare scale: 4.5/5
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