My Son Hunter

This is an important attempt at art. I was very pleased to see the ads for this one. Obviously there are powerful entities trying their best to cover up the important factual elements of this movie. The world of cinema has been so influenced by these forces that making a controversial in your face movie about the factual truth at the heart of this news story and making it with an attitude is very punk rock and I stand and applaud that.

This movie lays out some important facts. The lead actor is very good at playing the titular character. Shedding light on these matters through this art form at this moment in history is very important. I just wish I had more nice things to say about it, but that's about it. It reminds me more of the brief corny reenacting segments from a Dnesh Dsouza documentary than it does a classic piece of real cinema. If you want to know the facts, here are they are. Its just I dont know who this movie is for.

Anybody who wants to see this is probably already curious enough and knowledgeable enough about all the facts in the movie. I was expecting these facts to have a good movie around them. A well told story that you could appreciate in a timeless fashion even if you had no idea about any of this or the weight of it at present. Unfortunately that doesn't happen. False advertising. I wouldn't recommend it to people who dont follow American politics closely. Its a well done reenactment of facts and lays them out well in the way you would expect a corny network reenactment to play out. They try to inject some comedy but it isn't well done or funny aside from a few brief moments. The acting aside from the main character (he's great) is very very amateur, as is the pacing and cinematography and soundtrack and the rest. If you're looking for confirmation bias and dead set on liking this and laughing at the poorly told "jokes" that's the only way I could see calling this a good piece of cinema.

As a reenactment of facts it succeeds and is more fun than just watching a documentary with interviews and talking heads. I just feel betrayed by the false advertising that this is a real top notch film. I think most of the target audience already knows these facts, so it would have been nice if it could appeal to more of mainstream moviegoers. As a reenactment of important present news stories it succeeds in the way a really good episode of a TV News Drama like Unsolved Mysteries would. As true timeless cinematic art, nope, I dont know how anybody could say that with honesty it even finds the ballpark. A step in the right direction for cinema, but a very small baby step that ends in a collapse. Its heart was in the right place, but thats not enough. Better luck next time, keep trying.

My reaction to the film is both good and bad. The film opens with the disclaimer this is a not a true story, except for the facts" That really seems to be the point of the film. The fictional narrative is a device used to help make sense and flesh out a variety of characters, relationships and complex schemes we may have heard bantered about in the press. It's not an Oliver Stone political blockbuster like JFK but it's certainly more entertaining than Tom Hanks snoozer "The Post." Even with several compelling performances, the film has an aura of low budget amateurishness about it as it is often just too on the nose but certainly not without style. In a way, that really works for "My Son Hunter." Even with it's flaws, it's a fun film. Yet after watching, I was left wondering, was I cringing in parts because of the movie or because what the Biden's got up to was so bad? This film is it's own animal. It's satire blended with facts designed to get the audience to dig deeper into a problem a politically polarized media has purposely tried to ignore and suppress. It's obvious the film maker meant this as a "Wake up you idiots" slap in the face to those who failed to do their job for the sake of getting the"Orange Man out." In that regard my hat is off to a film maker who dared do what professional in the press would not. Those with political leanings one way or the other may praise or pan the film depending on their bias. I'd encourage everyone to give it a watch and make up their own mind. If only half the facts presented in this movie were true, and I suspect that may be an understatement, this would make the film a powerful piece worthy of serious follow up... this time.

Politics aside this movie is a mess. Like what is it? Is it a documentary? If it is it's too over-laden with "comedy" that undercuts the message it's trying to convey. If it's just supposed to be a movie there's too many sections of just droning exposition for it to be entertaining. It'll do fine in it's echo chamber I noticed most of the positive reviews are from people 45 +, but it's not going to convince anybody else by being as compelling as watching comunity theater production of Frost/Nixon. Also nothing says America first than having the entire film being shot in Serbia and only using foreign labor because it's cheaper.

The facts, or the truth? Alternative facts - remember those? This may, or may not be the whole picture, but it's worth watching to see a great performance by Laurence Fox. He might be cancelled for his political views - but the fact is he is an amazing performer. Hunter Biden may be a morally corrupt individual, he certainly is no Saint, and he is painted here as an unpleasant narcissistic drug user. It's an interesting optic of a man in freefall, devoid of any guiding light. Fox brings this to life in spades. The reality is that Fox is nothing like Biden, and has entered the British political arena himself, while his acting career appears to be stalled. Gina Carano, herself no stranger to controvery with social media, breaks the 4th wall with great wit, and brings humour and physical presence to her part.

This film has everything. It was clearly written by someone who doesn't really know much about film, didn't have nearly enough of a budget for the job, starred actors who have divebombed their careers, and seems like it had a legal team struggling to avoid getting sued.

You will watch and think, "that line almost sounded like a sentence a human would say, good work", "that sentence wasn't just exposition, high-fives all around", "that camera angle showed the things happening in the scene, superb", "this scene wasn't clearly written by a person who has never seen a drug outside of TV", "so this is what your career came too? You used to have a TV show", "that was an honest try at humor", and many more encouraging phrases.

Also they included an ad for the producers website in the middle of the movie, (a character turns to the camera and says to use the website) you gotta respect the hustle.