Movie Thoughts: The Hunter (2011)

• Released: 6 October 2011
• Directed by: Daniel Nettheim
• Running time: 1 h 40 min
• Rating 4/5

Synopsis

A hunter is sent to Tasmania to shoot the last remaining thylacine and collect its samples for a biotech company, but finds many troubles and mysteries on his trip.

My Thoughts

In 2015 I went through an interesting change. That being, I became absolutely fucking obsessed with thylacines (or Tasmanian tigers). They're still my favorite animal to this day, but back then I practically breathed all things thylacine.

Still, despite my hyperfixation, I never actually ended up watching The Hunter. I knew the movie existed and what it was about, but couldn't obtain a copy. Now, however, I finally had a change to watch the movie. And I really enjoyed it.

Okay, so, if you're going in expecting a ton of this movie to focus on thylacines, you'll get that. Partially. The main focus of the movie really is with our main character and his quest, not so much the animal itself. The last thylacine does eventually appear, but only for a minute or so. The other appearances of thylacines are through old movie footage of the Benjamin, the real (as in, our universe)  last known thylacine. 

But the movie mostly focuses on Martin and his struggles. He befriends the family he's staying at, gets tangled up in the mystery of their missing father/husband, and has to deal with a bunch of vicious loggers who don't quite like his presence in their town all the while looking for his tiger. I was a bit disappointed by this at first, hoping the movie would almost totally focus on the thylacine and how to find it, but honestly, the other conflicts only added to the movie in a good way. I actually found myself liking these side characters and their conflicts. I was actually devastated when the mother and her daughter perish in a fire.

My favorite character, being autistic myself, is the mother's neurodivergent nonverbal kid, however. I just related to him and I was very glad to see that he actually survived the whole ordeal. He was also helpful to Martin in finding his thylacine, which was nice.

The ending, where Martin decides to kill the thylacine but cremate it in order to prevent anyone from obtaining the samples, was a very sad and emotional one. Part of me wishes he'd let the animal live once he found it, and he almost did, but this is probably ultimately for the better, seeing how many people died out of competition just to try and get the damn animal. 

The animation on the thylacine is a bit dated by today's standards, but it's nothing bad, either. 

So, yeah, a movie I really enjoyed, albeit not only for the reason I expected it to. I really wish we actually had more movies (or any media, for that matter) about thylacines, though.