The Hunters (2011)

The Hunters (2011)

A low-budget film does not necessarily mean a bad film… but in this case, it does!

The Hunters is a French-Belgian-Luxembourgian film, and it did not turn out to be a good mix, as it resulted in a low-quality thriller with a convoluted plot that could have been effective if it had been presented more clearly. In fact, at the beginning, it’s difficult to follow the story. What’s more, this film would have been better if the characters’ psychology hadn’t been glossed over, or even completely forgotten and rendered useless. The flashbacks of the police officer character, for example, are of no interest whatsoever. It’s a shame, because this is yet another film that falls flat.

Usually, when it comes to manhunts, the villains’ faces are not shown, or at most, only their silhouettes are visible. This helps to maintain the intrigue, suspense and questions about what is happening in the film. Here, the rule is broken and the villains are revealed from the outset. Why not! But where it becomes unhealthy and worse is that we fraternise with them through their family lives, their jobs and their friends. So I tried to cling to the role of the good cop, but he has the charisma of an oyster, so… no chance! The actors don’t really perform well and the direction is mediocre (cut shots, scenes that could have been better developed, etc.).

It’s full of annoying clichés and nothing really original, basically. Chris Briant’s The Hunters is a pure survival film whose few clumsy moments quickly overshadow its less obvious qualities. The first part focuses on the protagonists and may leave viewers perplexed, but it also allows for a quick portrait of them to be drawn. The film attempts to become intense in its second half, where the masks come off and violence erupts.

Overall, the direction is neither terrible nor extraordinary, but it allows The Hunters to go completely unnoticed. It feels as though the film was directed by two different directors. There are a few good scenes that grab your attention and then some really bad, even ridiculous, passages, especially towards the end.

At first, I wondered whether I was watching a thriller or a horror film, but in the end, what I remember most is how boring it was! It has a bit of everything, including scenes that have no bearing on the plot, and yet… there they are! It’s as if the screenwriter threw in every idea he could think of. The script could have made for a decent horror film or thriller. But that’s what happens when no one has the strength to stand up to the screenwriter or director and cut, edit, structure, test, tighten, condense, and throw out scenes and characters that don’t work or are unnecessary. Someone wanted to keep everything in the bag and fought to structure it all. Whoever wrote The Hunters must have taken a screenwriting course because it was a poor use of the actors, the dialogue was wooden, but worst of all was the lack of a tight plot structure.

I’m loyal to cinema. I always watch the worst films to the end… even if sometimes I watch for about an hour and suddenly think to myself that I’ll never do it again! But I know I will. Out of passion.

I don’t understand why people loved it. As for me, I wasted another hundred minutes of my life watching a shallow film with a flimsy plot. It’s not scary, there’s no suspense, the actors aren’t good, and it leaves you feeling empty…
What is Dianna Agron doing here? Didn’t she have anything better to do? I really thought she was going to surprise me here, but she just has a nice, fairly bland role.

I really liked this very well-written review I found:

“It’s a shame that the director wants to overdo it in certain scenes. Having succeeded in creating a good atmosphere and suspense, he insists and emphasises with clichés that dishonour cinema. Especially since the script gave him plenty of scope to express himself. He certainly didn’t mess up his work, but he could have made it a masterpiece without any problem. Fortunately, the setting is magnificent, and you won’t get bored.

There you have it!
To conclude: An average film without much suspense, since we know what’s going on from the outset. It’s clearly a low-budget film, as I said at the beginning, and this is evident from the sparse set design. And although it takes place on the outskirts of a metropolis, the same people cross paths in surprising ways, which allows us to guess quite a few things, including the little twist, since it seems to be a thriller after all. And even though the motive completely escaped me at the time, I didn’t doubt the outcome for a second. I just thought that the last one would hold out a little longer, which meant that this little film was quickly seen and forgotten.