Major spoilers alert.
This film is great escapist fun that also satirizes the our bizarrely extreme cultural divide. It is refreshing to be able to bring gonzo humor and over the top gore as a way to step back from the mindless anger and group think. On top of that, Betty Gilpin's brilliantly played Crystal Creasy is something unique to film. While ostensibly written as a familiar Mary Sue able to kick any ass and beat down any threat, Crystal is a sardonic participant in a mad mad world. Highly intelligent yet without affectations, she really does not give a damn why everyone is trying to kill her. She is also the one character in the movie who does not comfortably fit into the extreme left or right stereotypes in spite of all the superficial appearances to the contrary.
I also credit the writers Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof for being willing to subversively skewer their own. Their sharpest barbs are reserved for their fellow Elites while the Deplorables are mostly just one dimensional cartoonish characters rarely provided with more depth than the aptly hilariously named Yoga Pants or Shut Up Gary.
On the other hand, the elite hunters characters are fleshed out with many little details and conceits familiar to those who travel in similar circles. Athena babbles on tritely and unoriginally about the singular importance of cutting tomatoes with a bread knife and using Gruyere in her grilled cheese sandwich speech which takes place in the mansion she keeps insisting is NOT A MANOR! She and her compatriots toss off Animal Farm Snowball references as a sort of intellectual adornment, insult, and shibboleth while revealing that they understand next to nothing about a book they were probably once forced to read in some boring English class.
The film's conflict originates with one of the Elite characters being found out sleeping with his wife's oncologist which leads to his dismissal from his charitable foundation. Another talks about his dubious devotion to a peasant lover he has inconveniently knocked up. They all look down on the hired hand Sargent Dale who is only allowed the smallest modicum of respect for having a small part in the Bruce Willis movie Tears of the Sun - "why is the sun crying?". Even the choice of having the action set in Croatia in something of a inside joke as that has recently been a preferred destination for the fashionable set seeking to avoid the common company of the hoi polloi.
The movie starts with a turtle and ends with a hare mirroring the awesomely twisted and violent bedtime story that Crystal says her mother used to tell her. That story serves as a sort of explanation of her uniquely detached outlook and her singular ability to spot deadly threats based on the smallest of tells.
At the film's conclusion, Crystal echos the story arc of the Napoleon Animal Farm character. She transforms from her deplorable self by donning Athena's signature red bottomed stiletto pumps, slipping into her stylish black dress, commandeering her plane, while tossing back Athena's prized champagne and caviar.
Why it's a Cinderella story!
Highly recommended if you have a sense of humor and can enjoy a stupid fun movie.
This film is great escapist fun that also satirizes the our bizarrely extreme cultural divide. It is refreshing to be able to bring gonzo humor and over the top gore as a way to step back from the mindless anger and group think. On top of that, Betty Gilpin's brilliantly played Crystal Creasy is something unique to film. While ostensibly written as a familiar Mary Sue able to kick any ass and beat down any threat, Crystal is a sardonic participant in a mad mad world. Highly intelligent yet without affectations, she really does not give a damn why everyone is trying to kill her. She is also the one character in the movie who does not comfortably fit into the extreme left or right stereotypes in spite of all the superficial appearances to the contrary.
I also credit the writers Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof for being willing to subversively skewer their own. Their sharpest barbs are reserved for their fellow Elites while the Deplorables are mostly just one dimensional cartoonish characters rarely provided with more depth than the aptly hilariously named Yoga Pants or Shut Up Gary.
On the other hand, the elite hunters characters are fleshed out with many little details and conceits familiar to those who travel in similar circles. Athena babbles on tritely and unoriginally about the singular importance of cutting tomatoes with a bread knife and using Gruyere in her grilled cheese sandwich speech which takes place in the mansion she keeps insisting is NOT A MANOR! She and her compatriots toss off Animal Farm Snowball references as a sort of intellectual adornment, insult, and shibboleth while revealing that they understand next to nothing about a book they were probably once forced to read in some boring English class.
The film's conflict originates with one of the Elite characters being found out sleeping with his wife's oncologist which leads to his dismissal from his charitable foundation. Another talks about his dubious devotion to a peasant lover he has inconveniently knocked up. They all look down on the hired hand Sargent Dale who is only allowed the smallest modicum of respect for having a small part in the Bruce Willis movie Tears of the Sun - "why is the sun crying?". Even the choice of having the action set in Croatia in something of a inside joke as that has recently been a preferred destination for the fashionable set seeking to avoid the common company of the hoi polloi.
The movie starts with a turtle and ends with a hare mirroring the awesomely twisted and violent bedtime story that Crystal says her mother used to tell her. That story serves as a sort of explanation of her uniquely detached outlook and her singular ability to spot deadly threats based on the smallest of tells.
At the film's conclusion, Crystal echos the story arc of the Napoleon Animal Farm character. She transforms from her deplorable self by donning Athena's signature red bottomed stiletto pumps, slipping into her stylish black dress, commandeering her plane, while tossing back Athena's prized champagne and caviar.
Why it's a Cinderella story!
Highly recommended if you have a sense of humor and can enjoy a stupid fun movie.