Hunter against hunterby Shawn Linden, tries to redefine the usual trope of a lonely man who must fight for survival. He does so, moreover, with a journey through what, apparently, is a concrete interest in the horror of the brutal. But the combination between the two is not capable of sustaining an argument with a series of predictable platitudes. In fact, the film seems to have real difficulties to do more than elaborate. a discourse on stark violence. Clumsily paced, the premise is unable to tie together the few threads of information it provides to tell a relevant story.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable in Hunter against hunter let it be its linear path through an argument that could be denser. In fact, there are times when Linden seems to find the exact point where tension becomes part of a painful narrative. But it is a tug of war against a messy landscape of pieces of information that never quite fit together.
The film is a vast collection of fragments of larger or more elaborate ideas. So much so that the story goes from one side to the other without achieving more than a general version of a narrative in subtext. Over and over again, the film fails to show a compelling perspective on its central nucleus. Or even something as simple as being credible in the event of terror.
Of course, the image of the man isolated (this time with his wife and daughter) and faced with a terrifying situation can be approached from horror. In fact, Shawn Linden does, and several of the film’s best moments are directly related to the battle against the wild. But the script does not have enough power to be more than just a parade of graphic horrors. That, despite its shocking ending and the fact that, for its final scenes, the film tries to make sense of the absurdity it poses.
But Linden, due to lack of skill or because the story is not able to cover all the plot lines that it proposes, does not narrate a substantive idea. One beyond the perception of man struggling against a circumstance that overwhelms him and threatens to destroy him. Hunter against hunter he doesn’t have the audacity to take the premise to more unsettling terrain. Or resort to something more than a direct look at the rawness. As if it had limited resources to narrate, the film ends up being a collection of bloody scenes without the slightest weight.
‘Hunter against hunter’: in the middle of the silence of the forest and the spilled blood
Joe Mersault (Devon Sawa) is an isolated hunter and apparently determined to keep his distance from the world around him. As much as it is difficult to locate temporarily or geographically his character and environment. His wife Anne (Camille Sullivan) and Renée (Summer H. Howell) are part of that one-dimensional underworldl. For Shawn Linden, it is of enormous importance to conjecture the hazy version on the context of his character.
During his first sequences, director spends a considerable amount of time showing the life of the Mersault. The camera critically examines the loneliness of the characters and their disconnection with ordinary life. Also shows the condition of the human faced with the wild. Joe is at the center of a premise that bases its effectiveness on how credible the character’s ability to survive may be. But, in addition to that, it is a look that pretends to be astute about what is hidden in violence as a visual language. Or that it tries to be, in any case.
But Shawn Linden fails that the journey through the forests of his hunter or the seclusion of his family has a concrete reason to happen. Much less, when the center of the argument is shown in a confusing way. Devon Sawa’s Joe, who until then had lived in relative peace, must face a nameless threat. Which? Linden doesn’t clarify. In fact, he bases the connection between Joe’s instinct for survival and discovering the eventuality on the same idea. As if Joe were, in addition to a hunter, an instinctive predator, the film raises a certain foundation about the wild in its purest form.
The idea could work more skillfully. A good part of the film has a messy and not very concrete air that evades a certain linear structure. And, up to a point, that decision might have favored Linden’s choice to show undisguised violence. Between the entrails of the hunted animals, the endless silences and the eventual danger to face, the characters will have to find a balance point.
And perhaps the movie would have been much more relevant and powerful if that center could have a real sense of threat. But Shawn Linden, in an incomprehensible decision, states that the Joe of Devon Sawa and his family will soon face the unknown. That, despite the fact that practically the entire argument takes place in the middle of an insular isolation that arises from the invisible. What then is stalking the Mersaults?
The confrontation with an eventual danger is, in fact, a blur in the script. Although the approach has a lot of mystery in parallel – is it a creature? A murderer? – it does not fully condense into a credible motif. For its second slow stretch, the movie lost its power to surprise.
Hunter vs. Hunter: Immediate Surprise and Dissatisfaction
The last scenes of Hunter against hunter they are, perhaps, the finest point in Shawn Linden’s premise. And, without a doubt, its end is part of some sense of controversy that the director tried to print to the film. But none of that is enough in the midst of the series of blunders that are interconnected in an invisible point. By the time Linden finally discovers the high point of his film — and it takes effort — the general interest in the story disappeared.
Could Linden build a more effective narrative from having made less gimmicky decisions? The apotheosis of a graphic and awkward conclusion suggests yes. But beyond that, Hunter against hunter it cannot be anything other than a failed epic about the wild against the human. A subject that neither manages to show in all its harshness despite its efforts.