MOVIE REVIEW: Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

Adventure, Comedy, Drama

Directed By: Taika Waititi

Film is often at its best when you can tell the cast and crew had as much fun making the thing as we as an audience did watching it. That is constantly the case with the work of writer/director Taika Waititi, who is making some of the most entertaining, fun, and straight up lovable movies today. The New Zealand native has a knack for telling authentic human stories in a goofy, heartwarming setting and his latest is certainly no exception. 

Hunt for the Wilderpeople tells the story of a young orphan named Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) who has bounced from foster home to foster home due to his bad attitude and reckless behavior. His troubled path leads him to his last hope before juvenile prison, a loving foster parent name Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and her rugged husband Hec (Sam Neill). Bella's untimely death threatens to send Ricky back into foster care however so he makes the insane decision to fake his death and run away into the New Zealand bush.  Hec chases him in and when an unfortunate accident immobilizes him they find themselves stuck in the bush for the next six weeks. A massive manhunt ensues while the two slowly find their way out of the wilderness. 

It's a clever plot and the way it all unfolds is a true testament to the writing powers of Waititi but the movie finds its true purpose in the character interactions between Ricky and his new foster parents Bella and Hec. Bella gets Ricky to come out of his shell in the first act of the film so we can see how much of a goof he is and the way they interact will melt your heart. The performance of Rima Te Wiata as Bella sells their entire relationship early on and the few major scenes she's in make a big splash.

The story really opens up in the second half when Ricky and Hec are stuck in the bush, before then the only real interactions we saw between the two were Hec telling Ricky to leave him alone. But once they are stuck in the wilderness together Hec is forced to learn who Ricky actually is and by the time his ankle has healed the two are seemingly great pals. So much so that Ricky is able to convince him to let him stay out there with him instead of going back to foster care.

This relationship is almost entirely sold by the performances of the two main actors. We all already know Sam Neill is a powerhouse talent but we haven't seen much like this from him before. It is a much more understated performance with significantly less dialogue than we are used to seeing from him. He is playing an uneducated man with a dark past and he makes us feel it in his performance. 

Then there is Ricky, played by the young and wonderfully talented Julian Dennison, who is the crutch of it all. He is hilarious, loveable, and sort of a bastard but it all feels real because of Dennison. This could have easily turned into a one-note cartoon character who constantly gets them into difficult situations but instead is an authentically troubled child with a lot to unravel beneath his colorful outfits. 

Though Waititi is telling a fairly serious story revolving around a missing child with legitimate issues, it never gets too heavy in its approach. He is known for making light-hearted, mostly comedic films and that certainly isn't lost here. To lighten the mood, for example, he turns the child services worker that is on the hunt for Ricky into a highly over exaggerated character who treats the manhunt, and her job, like a life or death scenario at all times. 

It's the little quirks and slight character adjustments like these that turn any one of his films into something wildly different than what you'd expect it to be. He manages to make each piece of his work a little slice of his home country as well, constantly showing us sides of New Zealand we weren't aware of and making us all fall in love with the place without ever having been there. 

Though they typically lean more towards the comedic side, his films are able to take us through the entire gamut of emotions so by the end of the story you have taken a truly satisfying ride through his mind. It may sound cliched but at the end of the day Hunt for the Wilderpeople will make you laugh hysterically, it will make you cry tears of both joy and sadness, and it will actually make you feel good about humanity, if only for a little while. In a crazy year such as this one, it is the exact kind of feel-good movie we all need to help forget about life for a while. 

As always, thanks for reading and I am Zach Who Watches Movies. Find me anytime on twitter @ZachWWMovies, smell ya later!