Bullet Points: Happy Hunting
Addiction is a really shitty thing. There are varying levels of how terrible the addiction is and they’re normally qualified by the limits to which a person will go to further their addiction. You only need to open up your Hulu browser and look at all the terrible reality shows about people with addictions to see the lengths that people will go to feed their addiction. My 600-lb Life literally has people eating themselves to death, and shows like Intervention have given us an up close picture of drug and alcohol addiction that is absolutely frightening to see. Happy Hunting shows us a portrait of a man dealing with a laundry list of addictive behaviors but it’s not even his most pressing concerns. The major one would be the townsfolk trying to murder him.
Synopsis: An alcoholic drifter must battle withdrawal and psychotic rednecks after he becomes the target of a deranged sporting event.
- Drugs are bad: I shouldn’t have to tell you that cooking meth and selling it is a bad thing. Australian actor Martin Dingle Wall learns this lesson a little too late as he finds himself sitting on a really terrible looking couch trying to sell meth to a couple of guys. Martin’s Warren Novak is by no means the hero of the story, he’s just the man who gets caught up in the horrible mess that’s about to happen.
- On the run: While selling home-cooked meth worked for Walter White in Breaking Bad, Warren Novak didn’t have the skills that Walter did and ended up on the run from some druggies. He’s actually trying to sneak his way into Mexico with the loot he stole from the bad guys but some poor planning and bad luck land him in a small town with a very bad secret.
- Bedford Flats: If you find yourself stuck in a small town as creepy as Bedford Flats as their annual hunting festival is about to start then you need to get to steppin’. The locals seem nice enough towards Warren but that might be because he’s been targeted for a little hunting action of his own.
- Hillbilly Hard Target: The movie turns into something that resembles the John Woo classic Hard Target but without the Van Damme and Woo collaboration that made it amazing. Happy Hunting finds Warren Novak among the group of locals who were selected (mostly because of their own bad behavior) to go running through the desert while some psychopaths shoot at them.
- Stay away from Steve: We don’t get much in the way of backstory for the hunters. Steve Patterson and his wife are a pair of hunters that kill from the passenger seat of their hybrid. They’re as nice as it gets so it creates an even odder situation when Mrs. Patterson starts swinging a spiked baseball bat at people. Steve certainly makes his own impression on the movie.
- Talk about a bad couple of days: Warren definitely goes through some shit in Happy Hunting. I don’t want to give away any of the good stuff but suffice it to say that Martin Dingle Wall didn’t have an easy time physically or emotionally portraying the character.
The Verdict: Happy Hunting was a good find. I really enjoyed Martin Dingle Wall’s performance in Gun Shy this year and I liked him even more in this movie. His range is much better than I expected and he really puts it to good use here. The action could have been better in Happy Hunting but it’s not a movie featuring a bunch of special forces operators or badasses so it’s not surprising that many of the characters aren’t very good at killing each other. The film could have used a bit of a quicker pace at the beginning but it turns out to be a little bit of The Purge wrapped into a Hard Target package. It won’t change your world but it’s a solid watch, if only for my man Martin.
