The conservatives, strangers to each other, are unloaded in a broad green field, where a crate full of knives, handguns and assault weapons has been left for them to use in self-defence. Why not be sporting while you’re trying to wipe out the opposition? The hunted are picked off by bullets and arrows from unseen pursuers, as if this were The Hunger Games with a political edge. Emma Roberts, Justin Hartley and Ike Barinholtz play some of the prey. Betty Gilpin (from GLOW) is Crystal, who works at a car rental company, has a Southern twang, and emerges as the badass heroine, a one-woman army surprisingly great at shooting, stabbing and body-slamming. From the minute she escapes from the field and walks into Ma and Pop’s country store on a dirt road in Arkansas, she is a backwoods Rambo, outsmarting and outfighting everyone who threatens her.
The director, Craig Zobel, is known for indie dramas tackling hot-button issues, including Compliance, in which a restaurant manager is duped into strip-searching an employee. He also turns out to be an efficient action director, leaning into the genre’s swift pace and suspense. Even when the action is at its most ferocious, though, the dialogue carries an unforgiving theme: there are no political heroes here. The conservatives are sympathetic at first as the underdogs, but it turns out that each has an unsavoury past. Barinholtz’s unnamed character hatefully demonises liberals on social media. Gary (Ethan Suplee), who hosts a podcast, is a conspiracy theorist who tells Crystal that the government’s “deep state” orchestrated the hunt.
On the other side, Hilary Swank plays a powerful CEO who dismisses lower-class humans as animals, but her character is seen only from the back for much of the film. The other left-wing hunters are even more poorly defined, mocked for their political correctness, an all-too-easy target. We can root for Crystal because she is an enigma, apolitical and focused on survival. As the balance of power moves back and forth, and even to a refugee camp in another country, the film cleverly teases us as to what might be real – could Gary’s conspiracy theory be true? – and what might be a ploy in the game.
There is a long history of satires running into trouble because philistines took them seriously. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), an irreverent send-up of Bible movies, was picketed in the US, and banned in some European cities. A Clockwork Orange (1971) was pulled from UK theatres for decades after accusations of copycat killings and death threats against director Stanley Kubrick. And in 2014, The Interview, with Seth Rogen and James Franco as journalists interviewing a caricatured version of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, made the real Kim so angry that North Korea hacked Sony’s emails. The film, which is silly and funny, was dumped straight onto streaming platforms.
But the misguided reaction to The Hunt goes beyond ignoring its satiric tone. This film lands in a world flooded with nasty political discourse, flat-out lies and internet trolls, who range from small-time podcasters to the President of the United States. No wonder a film so clear-sighted about this moment’s cynicism and divisiveness also became its victim.
★★★☆☆
The Hunt is released today in the UK and Ireland, and on 13 March in the US.
Love film? Join BBC Culture Film Club on Facebook, a community for film fanatics all over the world.
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.