The Hunt 2020
Betty Gilpin (GLOW) is the sole reason this film works. Her Crystal is a masterpiece of deadpan survivalism. With a weary sigh, a steel gaze, and an encyclopedic knowledge of combat tactics (and a bizarre love for the song "Cry Me a River"), she turns the tables with ruthless efficiency. Gilpin anchors the absurdity with genuine pathos; you believe she’s been through hell before breakfast. She is a modern action hero for the introverted, exhausted generation.
The violence is spectacular. This is not sanitized Marvel combat. It’s sticky, crunchy, and darkly hilarious. A bathroom brawl involving a heavy soap dispenser. A car escape that goes spectacularly wrong. The infamous "Proud Mary" kill. The film earns its R-rating with glee, directed with a sharp, kinetic energy that makes every set-piece memorable.
For all its edgy posturing, The Hunt tries to have it both ways. The hunters are clueless, wine-sipping hypocrites; the hunted are racist, gun-loving conspiracists. The film wants to mock everyone equally, but in doing so, it drains its satire of any real target. By making Crystal a centrist working-class hero who just wants to go home, the movie sidesteps the very culture war it claims to dissect. It’s safe edginess — the kind that lets liberals laugh at “deplorables” and conservatives laugh at “coastal elites” without anyone having to change their mind.
The middle third drags as the film introduces then discards supporting characters (Emma Roberts, Justin Hartley, Ike Barinholtz) in service of plot mechanics. Some of the social commentary feels dated already — the “Manorgate” scandal at the center is a thin stand-in for a certain real-world conspiracy, but the film never commits to what it actually wants to say about disinformation or class resentment. The Hunt 2020
Also, Hilary Swank is wasted. As Athena, she’s supposed to be the Queen Bee villain, but she doesn’t appear until the final act, and her performance is all sneer and no menace. The climactic monologue about her boredom with hunting “regular people” is meant to be chilling, but it lands like a first-draft Twitter thread.
A group of kidnapped strangers wake up in a clearing, gagged, with a wooden crate of weapons at their feet. As they soon discover, they’re being hunted for sport by a group of wealthy liberal elites led by the icy Athena (Hilary Swank). But the joke — or the twist — is that the victims aren’t random. They’ve been selected because of offensive, often right-leaning online activity. One victim texted “Execute them all” under a meme; another shared a Pizzagate-style conspiracy. In other words, these are “deplorables” to the hunters, whom the hunted call “the elites.”
But before you assume this is a Red State vs. Blue State lecture, the film’s secret weapon arrives: Crystal (Betty Gilpin), a soft-spoken, pragmatic woman from Mississippi who doesn’t fit the victim mold. She’s not a conservative ideologue — she’s just someone who survived a workplace nightmare and accidentally got swept up in the wrong internet argument. Once the hunt begins, Crystal turns the tables with brutal efficiency, exposing the hunters’ incompetence and hypocrisy. Betty Gilpin ( GLOW ) is the sole reason this film works
The Hunt is a 2020 American satirical action-horror film written by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse, directed by Craig Zobel. It blends political satire with social commentary, framed as a high-concept thriller about class, ideology, and media-fueled divisions.
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. A group of kidnapped strangers wake up in
The False Protagonists & The Twist The film employs a "false protagonist" narrative structure.
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.
