The Hunt movie review - Aussieboyreviews

HOW GUT-WRENCHING IS THE FALSE ACCUSATION THEME IN THE HUNT?

If there’s any proper way to describe this Danish false accusation drama, it’s definitely gut-wrenching. Mads Mikkelsen is nothing short of Oscar-worthy in this extremely entertaining and captivating, yet highly distressing and heavy masterpiece.

Storyline

In a small town, the world a kindergarten teacher struggling over his son’s custody is completely shattered when a young child in his class falsely accuses him of sexual abuse.

Movie Images

Movie details

Director: Thomas Vinterberg
Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Lasse Fogelstrøm, Alexandra Rapaport, Susse Wold, Annika Wedderkopp, Lars Ranthe
Writer: Tobias Lindholm, Thomas Vinterberg
Release Date (Australia): 2 May 2013
Runtime: 115 minutes/1h 55m
Genre: Drama
Country: Denmark
Language: Danish, English, Polish

CONTENT GUIDE (warning: May contain spoilers)

Themes (MA15+)

The film is mainly concerned with themes relating to a teacher being falsely accused of sexual abuse. The film contains references to child sexual abuse, depictions of assaults and a scene in which a dead dog is viewed after having implicitly being killed violently.

Violence (M)

The film features several assaults on a man that are accompanied by blood detail.

Coarse Language (M)

The film contains use of the words “**shole”, “s**t”, “damn”, “hell” and “f**k”.

Nudity (MA15+)

The film contains a depiction of full frontal male nudity and a very brief depiction of sexualised imagery containing a pornographic image of an erect penis.

Sex (MA15+)

The film contains a strong sex scene and a brief pornographic image of oral sex.

mpaa rating

R (for sexual content including a graphic image, violence and language)

Aussie boy's thoughts

This Danish drama perfectly captures how a false accusation from a small child can totally shatter a man’s life. Mads Mikkelsen stars in The Hunt as a very good teacher and likeable man, struggling over the custody of his son, who is suddenly accused of sexual abuse by a little girl in his kindergarten class. It’s nearly impossible to say you will not see a movie more powerful, captivating, gut-wrenching and realistic in 2012, or very likely your whole life.

The film certainly takes its time with character development and setting us in the story, where we are introduced to the small-town, friendly life of the main character, before it turns around to focus one one of his friend’s daughters who’s in his class. This child is portrayed to have an innocent crush on Mikkelsen’s character, to which Mikkelsen turns down an attempted kiss from the child, and so the child tells another teacher that he sexually molested him. The rest of the film goes on to show how this innocent man’s life crumbles down over a little lie.

Mads Mikkelsen is absolutely sensational in this film, accompanied by a brilliant supporting cast of Thomas Bo Larsen and Alexandra Rapaport, as well as talented young actors Lasse Fogelstrøm, Annika Wedderkopp. Every delivery of the characters in this film all feel incredibly real, and there’s no over the-top-moments. The Hunt is also very entertaining and gripping, although it can be tough to watch at times and several scenes will madden you. If you can’t handle gut-wrenching tone or content revolving around killings of pet animals, this is your warning.

This isn’t a movie that will immediately detach from you after it finishes either. Not only is the plot, screenwriting and execution impeccable, but this is a terrifying issue that happens more often than you think, and it can happen to ANYONE, including YOU. The only flaw audiences are likely to have with this film, if they find it so slightly bothersome, is the way it ends very abruptly, almost as if the writers got tired of writing and just wanted to finish up.

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