[yasr_overall_rating]
A national manhunt is ordered for a rebellious kid and his foster uncle who go missing in the wild New Zealand bush.
Sam Neill is an actor I have long admired. From “The Final Conflict,” the third in “The Omen” trilogy in which he played the antichrist, Damien Thorne, “A Cry in the Dark” with Meryl Streep, and the highly enjoyable British TV series “Reilly: Ace of Spies,” to big-budget fare such as “The Hunt for Red October,” “Jurassic Park,” and the effectively creepy, “Event Horizon,” the man is not afraid to work in any medium or tackle any role, and there are not many actors out there like him. With “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” he plays Hec(tor), a gruff and boorish old man who lives in the New Zealand mountains, along with his high-spirited and cheerful wife Bella (Rima Te Wiata). He likes their house because no one lives near them and he doesn’t have to interact with anybody else. We are introduced to Ricky (Julian Dennison), an insolent and rebellious teen from the city who is sent by Child Welfare Services to live with them. Having never had children of her own, Bella is only too happy to take Ricky in and try to help him straighten out his life. Hec quickly makes it known to Ricky that he wants him to stay away from him and leave him alone.
Initially, Ricky is all about running away but Bella quickly steals his heart, leaving a teddy bear and hot water bottle in his bed at night and interacting with him during the day. Weeks later, after coming back from a walk, he discovers Hec on the ground, crying over Bella’s dead body in the front yard. With her gone, Ricky discovers that Child Welfare Services will be coming to retrieve him but he is determined not to go back into the system, where he will be moved from foster home to foster home and instead, packs up his bag and heads out into the wilderness by himself, unflinching in his quest to live off the land. He quickly realizes that with no hunting or survival skills whatsoever, he is not going to last but just as he is about to give up, Hec appears, informing him that he is to go back with him. Ricky refuses and they get into an argument where Hec trips and sprains his ankle. Now the duo have no choice but to live in the wilderness until his injury heals. Characteristically, the two men don’t get along but over time, they come to care about each other and bond as they have to outwit the police, who are trailing their every move, stating that Hec has now kidnapped Ricky, kill or be killed by wild animals, and tackle overzealous hunters who want to capture both men so they can cash in the bounty on their heads.
While the overall story offers nothing new, it is the performances by all involved, that helps elevate “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” to the next level. We know that Hec and Ricky do not get along in the beginning but after Bella dies, we also know that they will eventually see eye to eye. Sam Neill has never been better and his portrayal of a loner, who has had a rough life with no interaction or love with anybody else, other than Bella, is heartbreaking. Watching him cry like a baby over Bella’s dead body, brought me to tears. Julian Dennison as the defiant and obstinate Ricky, thankfully does not give an artificial performance, like so many other child actors do, where the filmmakers try to force their unlikable characters onto us, to the point of ad nauseam. Ricky is a teenager whose mother put him up for adoption as a child and he’s spent his whole life being moved around from family to family, in and out of the system and has never had a mother or father figure to teach him the ways of life so his reluctance to go back to the city, is quite understandable, and gradually, Hec begins to see this and comprehends that the two are in fact, more alike than they both thought.
Taika Waititi, who is currently directing “Thor: Ragnarok,” delivers a simple story, superbly told. The film is beautiful and picturesque, and cinematographer Lachlan Milne deliberately flaunts the majestic New Zealand landscape, utilizing magnificent aerial photography, instantly bringing to mind Peter Jackson’s epic “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. In many ways, this is a love story, about two people who have had a tough life and finally learn that the whole world does not revolve around them and that they both need each other more than they ever realized, and this element of the story unfolds delicately but effectively. “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” is audacious, exciting, and filled with the human spirit, and in today’s moviegoing world of bloated budgets and enlarged egos, that kind of vision and enthusiasm, is very rare.
Opens at the Magnolia Theatre in Dallas and the Angelika Film Center in Plano July 8th
