Despite this movie's constant attempts to be controversial and edgy, once you get down to it, it doesn't really say anything.
This film is nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is. It constantly references the current political climate, but makes no actual commentary than basically to say that both sides are jerks. The liberal characters are mean spirited caricatures of liberals and the conservatives are mean spirited caricatures of conservatives. This is in the end the height of this film's political commentary, yet it is constantly shoved down our throats like it is some brilliant revelation. It isn't this is stuff we have seen in mindless comedies a million times, yet we are supposed to take it as something brilliant and thought provoking here. This all makes this the weakest kind of satire imaginable. It presents its message in a heavy-handed manner yet says nothing at all.
Another problem with making the characters all complete caricatures is that it is hard to care about any of them. Because of this the only reaction I had when a character died was "that was really gory." Because of this there is not the satisfaction of seeing the bad guys being killed or the horror of the good guys being killed. There is just simply people being killed. This makes the gore simply unpleasant to look at and little else. This works against this movie's attempts at suspense because in the end, we really don't care what happens one way or another.
While the majority of the humor in this film falls completely flat not working on a single level, there were a couple moments that made me laugh. After these moments were over, I couldn't help but wish the rest of the film could have captured the dark comedy in these scenes. Unfortunately these are isolated moments in what is otherwise a complete mess of a movie.
If you want to watch a movie about humans hunting other humans watch The Most Dangerous Game.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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