HUNT CLUB Review: Mena Suvari Leads A Paint-By-Numbers Survival Thriller That Remarkably Holds Its Own
Hunt Club will release on Digital and DVD beginning April 4 from Uncork’d Entertainment
Directed by Elizabeth Blake-Thomas, survival action thriller Hunt Club stars Mena Suvari as Cassandra, a charming and precocious woman who is suddenly abandoned by her girlfriend at a diner where it just so happens that father/son duo Carter (Casper Van Dien) and Jackson (Will Peltz) are enjoying a morning meal. After a respite chat and recovering with seemingly newly formed friendship among the group, Cassandra and the fellas convene with several other individuals as they make their way to a remote game hunting ground where Cassandra has been auspiciously invited.
It also stands to be seen if she’ll get to purloin a proposed money prize of about six figures if she wins the game, so not for nothing either if she gets to earn some cash opposite her competitors. Of course, for most of the runtime of Hunt Club, that’s what Cassandra would have you think if you didn’t see past David Lipper and John Saunders’s script for that matter, although it’s the cast performances that largely keep you watching right down to the end.
Inevitably, Blake-Thomas’s latest reveals itself much earlier than possibly preferred for there to be any real mystery as to what Cassandra’s intentions are, which essentially leaves you waiting for the next obvious twist. The first scene is of a drunken Cassandra rescued by a lone, pugilistic samaritan named Tessa (Maya Stojan) who steps in just as a trio of uncouth dudes is about to have their way. Later when we meet Carter and Jackson, it doesn’t take much cerebral effort to determine their relationship and overall rapport, with Suvari and Van Dien lending their screen caliber to hold the film together.
Even less so is the suspense behind Carter’s motivations toward all things on the spectrum of manhood with campfire talking points fresh out of a Proud Boy’s incel manifesto. Conveniently it sets up the blaring dichotomy between Carter and Jackson, the latter an impressionable coming-of-age adult whose kittenish demeanor with Cassandra is only the first in the unraveling of events that find the young man forced to confront the very thing that threatens his innocence.
Where the centerpiece entertainment stands here is in the action, violence, and gore, and undoubtedly Blake-Thomas does plenty to put in the work. Suvari’s Cassandra eventually finds herself held in a barn women are bound and tortured, their captivity monitored by one of Carter’s facilitators, Virgil (Mickey Rourke). The women are only let loose when Carter begins the hunts for his players, forcing the women to run for their lives until they’re caught and ultimately killed, with nowhere to run and deadly booby traps lurking in the woods. At least one character is held against her will in a cabin by two gamers and raped repeatedly, and Blake-Thomas does a fine job of crafting this particular character’s predicament without being exploitive or unsavory about it.
The brunt of the fight scene presentation falls on Stojan, who is in great shape and has the potential to truly stand out as an action star if given the right training and opportunities. Fortunately, gets to convey some of her prospective talents in Hunt Club, shaky cam, and perfunctory fight choreography be damned. At the end of the day, she brings conviction and gravitas to her performance, and that matters, and for a gritty, feminist iteration of Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” that bodes in its dramatic execution and chilling terror adequately to compensate for its other hit-or-miss endeavors.
Native New Yorker. Lover of all things pizza, chocolate, pets, and good friends. Karaoke hero. Left of center. Survivor. Fond supporter of cult, obscure and independent cinema - especially fond of Asian movies and global action cinema. Author of the bi-weekly Hit List. Founder and editor of Film Combat Syndicate. Still, very much, only human.
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