Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you an American dark comedy film from 2020, titled The Hunt. Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care. A woman, Athena, is seen sitting on her desk, texting. She's texting with her friends, sharing memes, when they start talking about the Manor and the Hunt.
A stewardess leans over to a man, asking him if he would like something to eat. She says they have caviar, but he isn't interested and goes on to list things that can only be made in a kitchen. When the stewardess tells him that, he makes some snarky remark and asks for Champagne.
She goes to get it and when she comes back to pour it, suddenly a man stumbles inside, scaring her and the others. The Champagne man says that one of them is awake, when an older gentleman jumps up and tries to calm the stumbling man, telling him he's a doctor. He makes him lie down on the towels and stabs him, to the surprise of everyone there.
The man isn't dead so he flings a bottle around, until Athena walks in and stabs him with her shoe. The others mention something about "it" not even starting yet. But, as she cleans her shoe, says that there is no sentimentality in war.
The older man from before drags the stumbling man into another compartment of the plane. He's still alive and asks for help, but unfortunately the blonde woman he calls to is unconscious. Later, the same woman wakes up outside, with a gag in her mouth which she can't take off.
She stands up and sees another woman with a gag across a river, making a makeshift compass. The woman acknowledges her existence for a second, but walks away in the same time a man walks by behind the first woman. She follows him to a field with a giant crate in the middle.
A few other people are seen approaching the box. One of them says it's a trap, but the man still goes to open it. The others hide.
He opens the crate and a pig runs out, then he looks inside and pulls out a rack filled with weapons. All of the people in the field go toward the crate, including the blonde from before. She finds the keys to the gags and helps one of the people out of it.
No one knows what's happening. Suddenly someone starts shooting at them, so they all hide. The blonde thinks she dodged a bullet, but suddenly gets shot.
One of the people on the field shoots toward the place where the shots came from before, but gets killed too. The others are still hiding. A woman runs out and falls in a ditch, so one of the guys goes to help her, only to find her impaled, though still alive.
He helps her up and they run when suddenly he steps on a landmine. They explode. Another guy manages to run away from the shooting.
He gets to a fence. Someone approaches and he almost shoots him, but it's the man who opened the crate. Two others run toward them.
They all jump the fence, except the crate man. He gets shot with a spear and decides to face his attackers, only to be killed moments later. The other three escape and get to a gas station.
The owners are a couple, thinking the people are robbing the place. Blue shirt tells them they don't want their money, he just wants to know where he is. They tell him that he's in the state of Arkansas.
He asks for the phone to call the police and they say they'll trace the call and be there soon. The woman eats a cookie and immediately chokes on it, like it's been poisoned. Suddenly, the couple are wearing gas masks and throw a smoke grenade at them.
Before blue shirt can shoot them, the man kills him first. They choke the other one with the grenade and then kill him too. The woman vents the gas station.
Later, they clean it up, disposing of the bodies. The woman sees that blue shirt has a wedding ring and starts feeling bad. Her husband tells her that it doesn't matter because he surely is a bad man.
Probably even uses the N-word. The couple argue about the subtleties of racism, when they get a call on the radio. They tell the woman on the other end who they managed to kill and she tells them that another one of the hunted is approaching their way.
They prep the gas station, as she walks toward it and walks in to find them ready and greeting her warmly. Crystal asks for a box of cigarettes and gets her emergency money, then asks what state she's in. The woman answers her as she gets her change, but Crystal notices something is wrong and attacks them.
She grabs the shotgun from under the counter, kills the man first and then the wife. Crystal checks the gas station and finds the bodies, then grabs some rubber bands and some ammo. She drops her jacket and leaves the station.
There's a truck in front, so she goes to check it out. First she sees that the plates are fake, showing Croatian ones underneath. Then she finds a trip wire, connecting the door to a bomb.
She hears the others talk on the radio she snatched and hides in the bushes. They're looking for her, because they can't find the couple from the station. They send a drone to check the station out and someone shoots it down.
The man that shot the drone appears, smashing the drone further and as he goes toward the truck, Crystal stops him telling him that it's rigged. She tells him that by shooting the drone he basically told them that they're at the gas station and then starts walking toward some train tracks she saw earlier. The man follows her.
He tells her he has a theory about why they're there, being hunted down. Apparently, he had read an article about a group of liberal elites that kidnap people and take them to a manor to hunt them down. Crystal doesn't really believe his theory.
She hears a train approaching and tells the man to run so they could catch up to it. They hop the train and once inside they find a group of immigrants, hiding. The man says that they're not real, that they're crisis actors.
They also don't speak English. Crystal isn't convinced in his theories again. Suddenly, the train stops and the military police searches the compartments.
Crystal and the man, along with the immigrants, surrender. The police is frisking them, when the man decides to tell one of the officers that the two of them are American and that the refugees are actually crisis actors. The officers don't speak English and step aside, when one of the immigrants speaks to the man in fluent English with an American accent.
He says they don't believe him and the man freaks out. The immigrant tells him that he's the only actor and that he needs to calm down. The man tackles him and puts a grenade in his pants, as everyone else hides.
The guy blows up. Next, Crystal is in a truck being taken to a refugee camp. Once there, she is taken to an officer who asks her for her papers.
She asks where she is and when they don't answer, she begins guessing and finally guesses right - Croatia. She asks them to call the American embassy. But instead, they bring in Don, another one of the people that were hunted along with her.
The two of them go to the camp kitchen to eat, while Don keeps sharing the same theories with her as the other guy. Suddenly an official from the American embassy shows up to pick them up. Later, they're seen riding with him through the woods.
Don has told him everything about their predicament and the official is shocked, saying he'll contact the state department and the military to find the people that hunted them. Crystal realizes that there's something strange about the guy, knocks him out and pushes him out of the car. Then she backs up over him, killing him.
She finds a gun in his jacket. While she looks through the trunk, Don is freaking out that she killed the official, until he looks inside and sees the other guy that was with her before, dead. She finds a map and Don says that he thinks they are the only two left.
Don wants to leave in the car, but she says no. She wants to use the map to find the people hunting hem and retaliate. She tells him a gruesome story her mother used to tell her, when the pig suddenly appears again.
At the bunker, the group of people hunting them is chatting about what's politically correct and what isn't. One of them is a soldier, their consultant. He asks them to be quiet, but they just make fun of him.
Athena's voice is heard over the radio, telling them to shut up. One of them goes out to pee and when he gets to a tree, Don distracts him with the pig and Crystal kills him. Back at the bunker, the group hears a noise outside.
The soldier gives them instructions on what to do, which they barely follow. All of them are scared, so when Don drops the pig inside, they shoot it dead. The woman is upset that they killed the pig, when suddenly Crystal kills one of the men and shoots at the others.
She incapacitates the soldier, then stabs the woman. She fights one of the other men for a riffle, but he takes out the ammo. She finds another bullet in the chamber and shoots him.
Then she goes to the sniper and kills the last one as well. She thinks she's got them all, but suddenly the soldier tackles her and they fight. Crystal pulls a pipe out of the celling and beats him up with it, but doesn't kill him.
The woman is still alive and she calls her a hick. Crystal picks up a gun and goes to shoot her, when Don shows up. He finds a gun and Crystal tells him to ask the woman why they were doing that to them.
She gives a stupid answer and Crystal wants to kill her, but Don stops her, saying she's a woman and should be spared. Crystal asks the woman if she should be afforded mercy just because she's a woman and as she answers no, Crystal shoots her. Don freaks out and suddenly Athena's voice appears on the radio, asking if he got Crystal, to which she points her gun at him.
He says he's not one of them, as Athena keeps asking what's going on over the radio. She tells Don to kill Crystal, as he pleads with her not to trust the woman on the radio, but she shoots him regardless. Crystal tells Athena that Don is dead and Athena tells her to come and get her.
Crystal sits down next to the soldier and has a civil conversation with him, until she asks where Athena is. She tells him that she won't give up and presses his wound so he tells her where she is hiding. He gives her the information, but cautions her that she was preparing for the hunt for months.
Crystal kills him too. A flashback to one year earlier takes us to Athena's office, where two people from the company are waiting for her. They talk about the text message she had about the hunt.
She says it was only a joke, but they tell her that there are people who believe that it's true. Athena laughs. But the man is persistent, calling it a possible PR nightmare, telling her that she has to step down from her position.
She asks for a list of the people that have made the conspiracy theory about her hunting human beings. Another flashback to eight months prior to the hunt, the group is choosing the people that will be a part of the hunt. They have difficulty choosing, but Athena tells them to continue.
Suddenly, the slide shows a picture of Crystal, as the man presenting the slides reads her opinions about Athena. She gets angry and chooses her as her arch nemesis. In the present, Crystal is walking towards a manor.
Athena talks to her on the intercom, saying that if she doesn't leave her gun there, she will activate the C4 under the gate. So Crystal leaves the gun there and walks inside. Beethoven is heard in the background, as Crystal cautiously walks inside the house and sees the pictures of herself and the others on Athena's wall.
Athena is waiting for her in the kitchen, cooking. She asks if she killed Don, but doesn't tell her if he was one of them. Crystal doesn't know who she is, but it seems Athena doesn't know who Crystal is either.
They talk about why she organized the hunt and Crystal makes fun of her for doing it for the wrong reasons, coming full circle and making the conspiracy theory a reality. And also because, she has the wrong Crystal. The woman that posted the awful conspiracy theories online about Athena was another Crystal with the same surname as hers.
After all is revealed, Crystal grabs a knife and goes after Athena. They fight savagely, equaling in strength and stamina. Crystal throws everything she can find at Athena, including an expensive bottle of Champagne, which Athena manages to save from shattering.
She kicks her over the fireplace, but Athena gets a shotgun and goes after her upstairs. They fight for the gun, but Crystal pushes her down the stairs and jumps down. Athena goes for a knife next and stabs Crystal.
They fight outside for a moment and get to the kitchen again, where Athena stabs Crystal with a vegetable cutter, but as she kicks her Crystal pulls her in and stabs her with the other side of the cutter. Athena dies, but Crystal survives. She gets up.
Eats the toast and closes her wound with a blow torch. She cleans herself up and puts on one of Athena's dresses as well as her shoes. Before she leaves, she takes the expensive Champagne.
She walks outside and sees Athena's private jet. When she walks inside the jet, she tells the stewardess and the captain that she killed their bosses and threatens them with a gun, telling them to take her home. She sits down and the stewardess prepares a snack and the Champagne for her.
Crystal invites her to eat and drink with her.
