How about not.

I’m going to admit something that depresses me to put to paper. I saw Hunting Games on the “leaving soon” section of Tubi and naturally grabbed it to watch because it came out this year. It depresses me in 2023 to say that the Tubi original tag does less to dampen my expectations for a film than seeing Danny Trejo attached. On the other hand the movie isn’t even attempting to pull the old bait and switch, putting Trejo on the cover by himself when he appears in the film for only five minutes. Trejo isn’t even billed as a starring role, relegated to the “and” part of the credits.

It took director Justin Lee 16 movies to direct a film with higher than a six on IMDB and you may recognize him from who cares. By the way that movie is not this one. He also directed Hellblazers, the zombie movie Tony Todd was in for all of three minutes before being unceremoniously killed off.

Hunting Games is a movie where Randy Charach plays the somewhat lead-ish role of FBI Agent Howell tracking down an ex-military dude named Darby (Ed Morrone) who breaks off with a small fortune in hundred dollar bills on behalf of his boss Henry, played by Bruce Dern. Unfortunately for him the money has been found by hunter Will Walker (Chris ‘C.T.’ Tamburello) who decides to turn this movie into a couple sissies prancing around in the woods for an hour and a half.

Oh and Danny Trejo is here, I think I mentioned that. Trejo plays the sheriff and appears in the film for all of six minutes before being unceremoniously killed off as is usual for his roles in these movies. Paige Sturges plays Billy, another hunter and Brian Cunningham and Michael King play the two mercenaries part of Darby’s crew. James H. Linville plays the unfortunate corpse whose gravestone the film desecrates by spray painting a dead character’s first name, and only their first name, on top in gaudy stencil art. Will then visits his wife’s grave which is even more confusing as it’s an actual gravestone of a Theresa Walker that says she died on June 30, 1912.

It’s mistakes like this that speak less to the low budget and more the sheer incompetence and laziness of Justin Lee as a director. Lee treats directing like a lazy teenager does the burgers at his summer job at McDonald’s. Ed Morrone is easily the best actor in this movie, like Bobby Fisher at an elementary school chess competition.

I’m guessing Justin didn’t want to use the gravestone of someone who died recently enough that their direct descendants could kick the crap out of him were they to see this movie. Don’t worry, Justin. The one review on IMDB and zero critic or user reviews on Rotten Tomatoes should be enough comfort to know nobody watched this movie except myself and Top_Dawg_Critic of course. Top_Dawg gave this movie one star while giving Strays a 9/10, which I think should be insulting enough to drive Justin Lee into early retirement. What I’m trying to say is stop making films.

Bruce Dern’s scenes were shot on webcam from his couch in his house while obviously reading a script off-camera they probably sent ten minutes before recording. I hope they got Cameo rates for this movie, which Bruce charges $200 to fart out a half-conscious message to fans. Cameo is a great place to ruin your respect for actors. There’s a scene where a character is blown up and the movie just disappears him and lights a small explosive on the ground nowhere near big enough to vaporize a whole human being.

This movie has every stupid cliche in the book from the dead spouse to the FBI agent on a revenge mission, the mercenary group of ex-soldiers, blah blah blah. The problem with this movie is that it’s an action film, or at least pretends to be in the ads. In reality there’s no tension because the characters are morons and nobody can shoot for shit. Especially the ex-military turned mercenaries. If I had a dollar for every time one of the characters is standing out in the open like a moron only to get shot at and survive solely because the guy shooting at him missed, I’d have too much money.

Characters escape from gunfights and then immediately relax in the wide open far too much. I was surprised to see a whole studio dedicated to grip and lighting because you’d never know this film had either. The microphones seem to be planted directly in the actor’s crotch because in a lot of scenes you can just about hear them over the sound of crunching gravel. Will gets shot and carries an expression on his face throughout the next few minutes like instead of being shot he’s carrying a ten pound bowling ball in his colon. I’m guessing the studio gave him a Little Caesars enema before shooting to get that authentic constipated look.

Speaking of Will, he never knows what to do with his face. Randy Charach speaks like he just landed on Earth and learned phonetic English by watching constantly buffering episodes of I Love Lucy. Nobody seems capable of stringing together complete sentences, often coming to complete halts at random points. Almost like someone is off-screen fumbling with cue cards. I know it’s not the actors because they all talk the same way and I know Danny Trejo doesn’t talk like that even when he’s phoning it in.

And speaking of Trejo, you can tell when he’s having a good day and a bad day. And for what it’s worth Trejo seems to be having a good day. I genuinely don’t think anyone got to read the script ahead of time and they were holding cue cards. This film is an absolute waste of 90 minutes, Justin still shoots films with all the tact and talent of a guy who just bought his first digital camera from the thrift store and wants to make some home movies.

Rating: D-