HAPPY HUNTING (2016)

Studio:       Vertical Entertainment
Director:    Joe Dietsch, Louie Gibson
Writer:       Joe Dietsch, Louie Gibson
Producer:  Bryson Pintard, Jeff Kalligheri
Stars:     Martin Dingle Wall, Ken Lally, Kenny Wormald, Connor Williams, Gary Sturm, C.J. Baker, Liesel Hanson, Kenneth Billings, Michael Tipps, Jeremy Lawson, Frederick Lawrence, Chuck Ramage, Sherry Leigh

Review Score:

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Summary:

An alcoholic drifter stops in a backwoods border town and becomes a moving target in their annual hunting festival.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Alcoholic drifter Warren Novak receives a cryptic phone call from Mexico about a woman who died that implicates him as the father of her child. Warren agrees to go to Mexico to meet the young boy, though he does not receive specific directions.

To get money, Warren attempts to burn drug dealer Bo Dawg with a bad meth cook. When Bo realizes the ruse, Bo’s partner moves to shoot Warren, but trips and accidentally kills himself with his shotgun. Warren pulls a gun and kills Bo before Bo can shoot him. Warren escapes, but Bo’s other partner Cal and teenager Robbie see him drive away, with Cal firing at Warren from afar.

Low on gas, Warren stops at a motel in the dying border town of Bedford Flats, less than 50 miles from Mexico. Warren notices that the town is preparing for a hunting festival and passes time attending a 12-step meeting where he meets former addict Steve Patterson.

Cal and Robbie arrive in Bedford Flats looking for Warren. To hide, Warren goes to dinner at Steve’s house and meets Steve’s wife Cheryl.

Desperate for a fix, Warren steals pills from Steve and Cheryl’s medicine cabinet. The pills turn out to have been intentionally laced and planted. Warren crushes and snorts one and then falls unconscious as Steve and Cheryl smile menacingly over him.

Warren wakes as a captive alongside Cal, Robbie, town drunk Bob, and town bum Jim. In front of the assembled townspeople, Bedford Flats’ Sheriff Burnside announces the five men as targets as he presides over the hunting festival celebration. Sheriff Burnside introduces this year’s hunters: storeowner Don Lincoln, the three Walkowski siblings, and Steve and Cheryl. The five captives are freed and forced to run into the desert.

The Walkowskis kill Jim by shooting him with a crossbow and running him over. From a distant sniper position, Don headshots Cal. The Walkowskis shoot Bob, but when they stop to take a picture before the final blow, Don snipes him for the kill. Robbie escapes into the mountain rocks.

Steve speeds toward Warren as Cheryl prepares to strike him with a spiked bat from the passenger side. Warren uses his jacket to catch the bat swing and pulls Cheryl from the car. Steve crashes and is knocked unconscious. Warren takes Steve’s hunting rifle. Don tries sniping Warren from the distance, but Warren makes it to the rocks.

Sheriff Burnside and his grandson Junior find Cheryl dead. Steve is taken back into town to be treated by Barney Ericson.

Warren regroups with Robbie. With a plan to try fleeing to Mexico, they make it to an abandoned Park Services station nearby. Suffering from withdrawal, Warren makes ethanol out of available items to quell his shakes and hallucinations.

Steve regains consciousness and becomes enraged when he sees his wife’s dead body. Steve ends up killing Barney in his fury and steals an ambulance to go after Warren.

Warren uses the station’s radio to call for help. The person Warren speaks to turns out to be Don, who tricks Robbie into looking out the window only to be shot by Don’s sniper rifle.

The Walkowski siblings storm the Park Services station. Warren rigs a pesticide canister to explode and in the ensuing commotion, he manages to kill all three of them.

Back in the desert, Warren passes a group of Mexican border-crossers. Warren warns them about Bedford Flats and notes the orange ties they are using to mark their path.

Searching for Steve after discovering Barney, Sheriff Burnside tells Junior how junkie Steve was once one of the hunted. However, Steve escaped and eventually returned to Bedford Flats a month later as a changed man.

Warren triggers an animal trap and is unable to remove his leg. Don catches up to him and after a gunfight, the two men engage in close quarters combat. Don stabs Warren. Warren recovers a dropped shotgun shell and uses a knife to make it explode, injuring the hand holding the shell, but killing Don. Warren frees himself from the trap and resumes his route to Mexico.

Sheriff Burnside and Junior catch up to Steve. Their standoff ends when Junior jumps the gun on killing Steve, allowing Steve to kill Junior instead. Steve then beats the sheriff to death with his spiked bat while townspeople listen over the radio.

Warren makes it to the border wall. Recognizing an orange tie on a bush, he finds a hatch leading to an underground tunnel. Warren enters and makes another phone call to his Mexican contact, this time connecting with the little boy. The tunnel lights go dark as Steve enters in pursuit of Warren.

Steve overpowers Warren. Steve taunts Warren’s addiction by offering him a bottle of alcohol. Warren takes a swig. Steve then offers to light a last cigarette for Warren. Warren uses the opportunity to spit the alcohol into the flame, setting Steve’s face on fire and killing him.

Warren exits the tunnel in Mexico only to be sniped by a quartet of Mexican gangsters. Warren laughs at the men’s comments and is shot again. Warren continues laughing.

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Review:

News of a forgotten woman’s passing has alcoholic burnout Warren Novak on his way to Mexico to meet a son he didn’t know he had.  A drug deal burn gone south and a few dropped bodies have him speeding there even faster.

Warren is in constant need of booze to quell the handshakes and hallucinations that come from withdrawal.  With only a vague idea where he is even headed, Warren also needs an out of the way place to lay low while waiting for word on what to do next.

Warren stops a few miles shy of the border in the dying desert town of Bedford Flats.  Once a thriving hunting community in days long gone by, the handfuls of locals and yokels left behind pay tribute to their past with a festival celebrating predator versus prey.  Of course, these backwoods ‘billies are the predators, and Warren is one of their prey.

Crewed up with other captives, Warren is in a literal run for his life across sun-bleached sands and treacherous terrain.  Warren isn’t sure what will kill him first: the spiked bats and sniper scopes following him from behind, or the alcohol evaporating fast from his body.  If Warren can’t make it to Mexico, he might not survive the Bedford Flats bedlam.  If he has to make his escape sober, he might not make it at all.

There are more alcoholic antiheroes in movies than there are grains of sand at Venice Beach.  What makes Warren Novak of “Happy Hunting” unique is that you don’t want to see a kicked addiction ending in routine redemption.  You want to see Warren chug down a fifth like Popeye does spinach so he can steady his strength for the vengeance ahead.

In spite of being a boozy bum quick to the trigger when his meth rip turns sour, Warren has an astonishingly relatable Everyman appeal, credited hugely to a well-tuned performance by Martin Dingle Wall.  Wall strides across the screen with a style that brings to mind Bill Paxton with bits of Peter Berg and Michael Rooker added in.  Cagily charming with world-weary eyes, Wall’s chalky American accent is so perfect, you’d never sniff out that the actor is actually Australian.

Warren and Wall combine for just one of the ways “Happy Hunting” stands out in the killer redneck subgenre already crowded by “Deliverance” riffs and “Hills Have Eyes” homage.  Its premise isn’t original, yet the film makes up lost mileage with inventive setups for its inevitable face-offs.  Instead of the usual rinse and repeat of panting and running protagonists pursued by cackling and shooting antagonists, co-directors Joe Dietsch and Louie Gibson put more panache into the action.  Warren plays MacGyver more than once to come up with a creative kill and it never feels as if the film is trying too hard to be clever for clever’s sake.

Shocked oohs and ahs fall from the mouth at a few marvelously explosive headshots and bullet bangs.  Much less impressive on the post-production front are obvious instances of ADR as well as digital effects worth pulling back lips over teeth clenched in a squint.  “Happy Hunting” is oddly hot for hazy clouds of browned crimson in its blood sprays and the less said about its CGI fire, the---.

Cartoonish concepts occasionally interfere with tension and some characters do the same.  As Warren’s chief adversary, Ken Lally doesn’t quite go over the top with his performance, but he definitely plays at the peak.  When engaged at full throttle, his sneer opens so wide and his brow jumps so high, he looks like a Tex Avery creation.  Take a few dials down a notch here and there across the film’s board, particularly to lessen the levity, and “Happy Hunting” would be a far fiercer film.

“Happy Hunting” expends a lot of energy early and then hits a mid-movie lull, but authenticity in the atmosphere recharges the home stretch for an entertaining experience overall.  Shot on location in California’s Bombay Beach, ably standing in for Texas, the extras accent the Salton Sea setting along with the suspense.  There’s an unsettling intensity underneath everyone’s folksy exteriors.  When that mood pumps straight through Martin Dingle Wall’s performance as he navigates unexpected shifts in the action, “Happy Hunting” takes a confidently big bite out of the competition when it comes to “Most Dangerous Game” thrillers.

Review Score:  80

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