The Hunt                                             2 ½ stars

Since I haven’t been to a theater in a long time, I went looking for a new release. I landed on The Hunt which has been called one of the most controversial recent movies. The Hunt is a violent political satire horror action movie that features the hunting down of people for sport on an isolated patch of land by a few rich elites.  The elites are believers in the usual left-wing issues like climate change, follow leftist authors and are led by Athena (Hilary Swank), a left winger who hates the kind of people who love Donald Trump.  A group of twelve people awake to find themselves in an unknown countryside and discover that they are all believers in the conspiracy theory that there is a place called The Manor where right wing types are hunted down by leftist elites. There are a few utterings of second amendment rights and the evils of immigrants. In a clearing there is a giant crate, that when opened reveals a pig and a giant cache of arms. It doesn’t take long till the shooting starts and the group finds that they are the prey. They gather the weapons available and try to escape while each is gunned down in ever increasing bloody and violent fashion.  The violence level is high in this one, (comparable to Revenge from a couple of years ago). There is an assortment of well known actors playing the right wingers. There is Emma Roberts who is Yoga Pants who doesn’t last very long. Justin Hartley from This Is Us is a hunter of exotic wildlife. Ike Barinholtz of The Mindy Project is Staten Island. Wayne Duvall is Don??. Ethan Suplee of My Name is Earl is Shut the F*** Up Gary. There is another character referred to as Target for reasons that become clear. As the body count increases one person emerges as more than Athena was counting on by the name of Crystal (Betty Gilpin of the TV show GLOWS) who is quite proficient with a gun and various hand to hand weapons. While it may not be entirely appropriate for our times, the movie effectively satirizes the common behavior of believing conspiracy theories without checking out the facts.  If you feel like combining political lunacy with bloody violence, then The Hunt might be for you as there is something in it for both sides. Who knows? President Trump might even like it.