Hunter Gatherer stars The Wire and Fringe’s Andre Royo as Ashley, a middle-aged man trying to reenter the real world and build a life for himself after being released from prison. Because I love anytime that Royo appears on screen, I was extremely enthusiastic to see this film, but watching the film was an entirely different experience. Even though I felt it was admirable to make the protagonist a man who is usually not central to any storyline, but appears on the fringes of or not as the hero of his own movie, but the villain of another’s, for me, it was like how most people watch a horror film as I correctly predicted how all his machinations would result in a way that he did not anticipate and thought of the most realistic, horrible effect of his actions. Ultimately I did not think that it worked, and the end of the film ruined what was effective about the film.
The cast does a perfect job acting and imbuing their characters with dignity and making them feel like three-dimensional characters albeit I did not like many of them. The story felt unflinchingly organic and realistic as if the protagonist’s hustle and self-sabotage was consistent instead of a redemption arc that would have left viewers feeling better, but would have been a lie. I could have not enjoyed the story, but still appreciated it until it ended on a magical realism note that left me cold because it felt tagged on. If you are not Guillermo del Toro, but especially if you are an American, then you probably won’t do a good job using magical realism in your movie. By using magical realism, it felt as if the filmmaker betrayed the earlier rigorous commitment to the psychology of the characters and the interpersonal dynamics depicted throughout the film, but to what end? Magical realism provides a resolution that cannot be achieved in our world, or it depicts the reality of our spirits, not our world. It was an inconsistent, pulled punch that still left me feeling as if the movie took a dramatic left turn for the sake of the filmmaker, not the story. If I’m really honest with myself, Chekhov’s dynamite was when I should have started running in the other direction. It was as if the filmmaker could not bear to end the movie on a quotidian note and felt somewhat inspired by John Irving.
As a result, Hunter Gatherer was the first of two films that I saw this year with a white man as the writer and director with a majority black cast, but was ultimately a let down and made me feel reluctant to see the next film with a similar demographic. It did not matter that I saw numerous films such as The Color Purple or The Last Black Man in San Francisco which disproved my growing skepticism and reluctance to watch films created by white creative teams behind the camera with black actors in front of the camera. Even though we still live in a world where I am just grateful to see more than one or two black people on screen with speaking roles, because there are more films with diverse creative teams behind the camera, which does not necessarily mean that the film will be good, it definitely feels different than having to settle for whatever one could get. Blame Matt Damon, “When we’re talking about diversity, you do it in the casting of the film, not in the casting of the show [behind the camera].” It was as if the filmmaker could not imagine the real ending that these men would face as a result of their actions.
Hunter Gatherer should have ended with a slow erosion of material circumstances while his internal reality remained dissonant and braggadocious, an image of what life is like once one becomes untethered from the anchors of love and care and people start believing your actions over your words, a fantasy world unsustainable and undeserved in reality though every person deserves happiness, love and security. For me, I was more invested in Jeremy’s story, Ashley’s “friend.” He is on the same road as Ashley, but through no fault of his own. Alternatively there was a tantalizing idea that some of Ashley’s BS was rooted in reality as some scenes revealed that he inexplicably did have connections to some local movers and shakers so maybe his reptilian brain would kick in, and he would find a way to survive, but men like that rarely accept reality or embrace despair.
What I most loved about Hunter Gatherer were the people who managed to eke together a sincere, full, functional joyous life on the periphery of Ashley’s focus. Ashley has numerous men and women to provide examples of ways to live a good life, but instead he confidently plows forward on his own agenda, and we are along for the ride. In real life, people like Ashley annoy me for taking for granted the people around them and making their lives consistently worse. Ashley puts so much effort and hard work into following the beat of his own drummer, but has never figured out that he should not listen to his drummer, who manages to play all the wrong songs. His misplaced pride irks me.
Visually Hunter Gatherer is colorful and vibrant, but when it delves into depicting Ashley’s fantasies, it is like letting all the air out of the balloon. It has the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of making me empathize with Ashley more, it makes me want to splash him with cold water. If I had to choose someone in the film, it is the resigned tutor who doesn’t even bother to argue with him because it is a waste of time.
Hunter Gatherer did not stick the landing and initially had potential, even if it was not for me. The filmmaker needs to go watch The Last Black Man in San Francisco to see how his vision of Los Angeles could have worked if he decided to focus on Jeremy instead of Ashley or at least left out the magical realism and clung to being faithful to the spirit of the story. A man like Ashley would never settle in his fantasies for the simple joys of friendship.