MovieChat Forums > Hunter Hunter (2020) Discussion > This movie had so much potential and the...

This movie had so much potential and then squandered it all...

posted 3 years ago by cyguration (3841)
10 replies | jump to latest

Based on the trailer I had that sinking suspicion the father wouldn't live to see the light of day by the time the credits rolled, but I at least expected him to do his due diligence in carrying out his task of hunting the wolf.

Instead, after the halfway mark this veteran hunter -- who had been raised to hunt and survive since the age of eight -- is somehow done in in the most absurd way imaginable (in fact, it's so absurd that you actually can't imagine how it happens).

The movie then decides to subvert its own premise to turn into a torture-porn flick, and then decides to go even further by having the characters act completely out of turn leading up to the "shocking" ending.

Everything after the halfway mark fell apart for this film, and in quick order, too.

I really tried to like this film, and I really wanted to like this film -- it had all the makings of being a new-age cult classic, but for some bizarre reason the writer/director decided he wanted to kill off any chance of this film being memorable by having the characters act retarded and then throw in some out-of-the-blue shock values just to justify that equally ridiculous ending.

Ugh... so much wasted potential.

[–] Poozer91 (570) 3 years ago

Agreed. The father was a veteran survivalist and did not trust anyone outside of his family. There is no way in hell he would ever take his eyes off Nick Stahl let alone get killed by him, so that really pulled me out of the movie. Also wasn't this movie mostly about catching the wolf? That is abandoned a little halfway through and never resolved.

[–] cyguration (3841) 3 years ago

Well, the thing is, after the father wounds the wolf and tracks it back to its "lair", he finds that the wolf is just feeding on the corpses left by Nick Stahl's character. So we're to assume that he begins to hunt the "hunter", but is done at night while sleeping in the middle of the woods.

The violent and aggressive wolf is completely abandoned in the film, and you're right, it's never resolved. Now that it has a taste for human flesh it'll likely seek out more humans closer to town.

Had the film been more about Joe hunting Nick Stahl and killing him (which is what would have happened in real life, since there's no way a loud, walkman-playing punk like that with no hunting experience would have been been able to get the jump on Joe) the movie should have focused on Joe and the wolf that now has a taste for human flesh. THAT would have been a fascinating film to watch, especially with the wolf knowing Joe's traps and understanding where the family lives and how they operate.

[–] Poozer91 (570) 3 years ago

Agreed. It would have been a much better film. However, the movie left a lot of questions unanswered.
1) How was Nick Stahl able to kill all those people? When it shows the site of his victims there are a great deal of them and many are in various stages of decomposing. Did he lure a whole group out and murder them one by one and the wolf ate many of them.

2) How was Stahl able to attract a person to a secluded part of the woods without the person becoming very apprehensive?

3) If there was a wolf devouring people, how was Stahl not attacked? I get he was leading people their so their bodies would be eaten by the wolf, but it stays away from him?

4) Stahl said he needed to move his car as to not attract suspicion. Was he there for weeks just killing people he finds in the woods or was he driving back to the same spot?

5) The movie does no get into motivation. That is fine, I guess that Stahl was just crazy and violent, but the guy was so reckless with killing people. He left bodies everywhere along with fingerprints, was loud and had his Walkman on so he was unaware of his surroundings.

[–] cyguration (3841) 3 years ago

The film answers your questions visually and sometimes descriptively but done in a pretty poor way. You REALLY have to pay attention otherwise it's easy to miss the clues.

How was Nick Stahl able to kill all those people?

He did it one by one, over the course of years.

Since it was secluded on private federal property, no one knew where he was keeping the bodies.

Did you notice the missing persons photos int he police station? Probably not. It was a blink and you missed it moment. Those were some of the women Stalh had captured and killed. He was capturing women over time, raping them, and then leaving their bodies to decompose in the woods.

Basically the woods was the final place of their death. He would sit and watch them die and then leave.

) How was Stahl able to attract a person to a secluded part of the woods without the person becoming very apprehensive?

He didn't. That's what the car was for.

He would do what he did to the main family -- find someone secluded or in the middle of nowhere, capture/rape them and then bring them to his little lair to finish them off/watch them die.

If there was a wolf devouring people, how was Stahl not attacked?

I don't know. This is a stupid plot hole. The wolf would have had Stahl's scent due to how frequently he went to his little "lair" and it would have killed him or hunted him down at night, especially after his car broke down and he was wandering in the woods.

Was he there for weeks just killing people he finds in the woods or was he driving back to the same spot?

No, he came back for his latest victim -- the one tied to the tree, but his car broke down so he couldn't leave.

He somehow managed to kill Joe, and then got caught in one of Joe's bear traps, escaped, and then the wife/daughter rescued him.

[–] cyguration (3841) 3 years ago

He left bodies everywhere along with fingerprints, was loud and had his Walkman on so he was unaware of his surroundings.

Yeah this was the most frustrating part of the film for me.

How could a guy this reckless do what he did for so long?

I didn't mind that they didn't get into motivation, sure maybe he was just a crazy serial killer/rapist. Fine.

But being able to out-hunt Joe? No freaking way.

Being able to fool both the mother and daughter (especially since the daughter recognized something was wrong but never kept her guard up around him? Really?!)

The daughter also should have recognized that his leg had been damaged by one of the animal traps.

Obviously the director wanted a whole female empowerment thing for the wife, and a bunch of media outlets have been praising him for it, but I just find it stupid.

A more realistic and similar movie is Wind River. Very similar premise but the hunter in that film is portrayed in a far more legitimate fashion and the outcome is 100% more realistic than Hunter Hunter.

The thing that made me so frustrated with Hunter Hunter is because Joe was portrayed as being a far more efficient hunter than the one in Wind River, yet a sloppy serial killer who listens to a walkman (loudly) managed to sneak up on Joe and beat him in the back of the head while Joe was sleeping in the middle of nowhere?!?!

It's like... ugh. It's such a frustrating film because the first half of Hunter Hunter was so good and almost perfectly well constructed thanks to how methodical it was.

[–] Poozer91 (570) 3 years ago

Thanks for the response and answers. That makes a lot more sense why they showed all those "missing" posters.

Wind River is an infinitely better film than Hunter Hunter in every way. It is more intriguing, the characters are better developed and acted and the movie never drags. It was one of my top 10 films of 2017. I only have one problem with the film that involves a major spoiler, which I am sure you could probably guess. Wind River is far more realistic and does not delve into the torture porn style film that Hunter Hunter needlessly does at its conclusion.

[–] cyguration (3841) 3 years ago

Yup, totally.

The torture porn ending to Hunter Hunter really ruined the viewing experience for me.

It was one of my top 10 films of 2017. I only have one problem with the film that involves a major spoiler, which I am sure you could probably guess.

[–] Poozer91 (570) 3 years ago

Hmm, I actually can't guess it. Not sure what the problem might have been? Is it with how he got the guy up to the top of the mountain without anyone noticing the tracks from the snowmobile despite them reporting the guy as a missing person... or was it something else?

No. That I can let go. My main problem is how the security unit has no plan. So they massacre about six police officers and an FBI agent and believe there will be no consequences? There is no possible way they can cover that up. Also I guarantee that those officers keep in radio contact about where they are throughout the day (this I know to be true as my brother in a police officer). So there is no back-up plan and they are all screwed. I would say is was spur of the moment thinking, but they were flanking the police officers and planned to take out Olsen first with a shotgun. However, I still love the movie and I was invested the whole time.

[–] cyguration (3841) 3 years ago

Ah, yeah I thought about that, too.

I think it really was a spur of the moment thing. Remember the kid with the shotgun was finicky and panicking and constantly asking what he should do. They really had no plan.

I don't think it was so much a plot hole as those guys had already dug themselves into a corner (and even if the police/FBI had not showed up, Jeremy Renner was still on their trail and likely would have taken them all out and disposed of their bodies properly).

They were willing to kill everybody there and likely just leave before any additional reinforcements showed up. You could tell that their lie wasn't holding up, which is why they already had the guy in the trailer prepped with the shotgun as a contingency because they had no other out.

As silly as it may have seemed (given that once they killed an FBI agent, they would have been swarmed within days by all manner of law enforcement), the reality is that they panicked and didn't know what else to do.

There have been A LOT cases like this that have played out exactly as they did in the movie, but in real life, especially when suspects are pulled over by police for some minor crime or a suspected crime and out of fear they shoot the police and flee the scene. There are countless cases of that happening. Also someone who kills someone and gets a visit by the police... usually they pretend to be calm and then when they get an opportunity they pull a gun and shoot the cop.

I've haphazardly come across a few bodycam videos of those exact scenarios on YouTube, so in that regard I didn't think what those security guys did was all that out of the norm, and since they had already committed rape/murder, they were just going to try cover it up with more killings until they were finally caught or killed, which is exactly what happened to them.

[–] Poozer91 (570) 3 years ago

Oaky. I guess that makes sense. It is one of my favorite movies of that year. It is from Taylor Sheridan who I yet to so make a bad or even average film. If you see Sicario, Hell or High Water, or most likely the upcoming Those Who Wish Me Dead, he shows no sign of stopping and will remain making movies leagues above Hunter Hunter.