Directed by:
Taika WaititiScreenplay:
Taika WaititiCinematography:
Lachlan MilneCast:
Julian Dennison, Sam Neill, Rima Te Wiata, Oscar Kightley, Rhys Darby, Cohen Holloway, Stan Walker, Taika Waititi, Rachel House, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne (more)VOD (3)
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Raised on hip-hop and foster care, defiant city kid Ricky (Julian Dennison) gets a fresh start in the New Zealand countryside. He quickly finds himself at home with his new foster family: the loving Aunt Bella (Rima Te Wiata), the grumpy Uncle Hec (Sam Neill), and dog Tupac. When a tragedy strikes that threatens to ship Ricky to another home, both he and Hec go on the run in the bush. As a national manhunt ensues, the newly branded outlaws must assess their options: go out in a blaze of glory or overcome their differences and survive as a family. (Signature Entertainment)
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Reviews (9)
With his last vampire parody Taika Waititi made me laugh like nobody else has in a long time. So I assumed the Hunt for the Wilderpeople would be in a similar vein, but I was mistaken. It sure is a funny movie. Only the good premise and a limited number of jokes were pushed aside by the New Zealand landscape, which is the main and most important character of the whole movie. Sure, the little fat kid who presents the Maori nation, suppressed by the current commercial world ruled in his case by the black gang of rappers led by Jay-Z, has enough to do with it. I simply couldn’t shake the impression that his character was sometimes a little over the edge compared to what I lived in. After the film, I almost felt like I was ceasing to understand today’s young people, even though I was one of them until recently. However, Taika Waititi directed it well, so he cleverly pitted today’s modern world against the very nature from which the Maori came, and even though the conclusion was quite brutally overdone, the film still managed to entertain me for almost two hours.
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If I were supposed to take care of that fat bastard (sorry, morbidly obese troubled boy), it would definitely be a short film, as he definitely wouldn't survive his attitude in the beginning. The longer I watched, the more obvious it was that it was a typical family film, whose plot, despite its many unlikely adventures, was inevitably marching towards a happy ending, which isn’t exactly my thing. It’s not that I hate happy endings, but the story just wasn’t any good. I’m not sure why the characters repeatedly said there were a million hectares of the Bush around them, when both runaways kept stumbling across people all the time. Lame.
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Waititi's got it in him. A film that is a first-rate and unrelenting critique of the complexity and sterility of the contemporary world, but at the same time never stops churning out amusing plot twists, metaphorical ideas and even some great lines that will stay on my mind for a long time. And where the legibly plotted development of a simple story isn't enough, the chemistry between the wilful Ricky and the hardened Sam Neill helps, as he takes on another memorable role. Armed with a volley of cinematic references, Waititi escapes into a wild territory of endless irony and hyperbole, where he never gets lost but manages to merge deliberate plot extravagance and goofiness with a cleverly intimate story that, while failing to inspire any thought, is so entertaining and functional on the surface that could be a lesson to many indie writers. Let’s hope Taika won’t get burned in Hollywood. 80%
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I really enjoyed this adventurous journey through the New Zealand bush. It had pace, enough tension and of course there was no lack of emotions. I absolutely loved the style of humor, enhanced by scenes full of absurdities and exaggerations, which fed all the strange characters that appeared in the plot. Even Sam Neill impressed me, even though I don't like him much otherwise. But he played the role of the surly surrogate uncle really well. (85%)
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A relaxing comedy (it sometimes reminded me of a more vulgar version of Kolya), which I would screen as a double film with Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. It's playful, sensitive, funny, very well acted, filmed and accompanied by great music. It perhaps bothered me that it was a bit predictable. However, I wish I would see such films more often in the movie theatre.
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