If you’re looking to pick a fight on social media these days, a good place to start (outside of the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict) is talking about generative artificial intelligence.
This is especially true in sections of the internet where people like to discuss the arts, since this new technology is viewed (depending on who you ask) as something that will either revolutionize the entertainment industry or bring about its downfall.
Personally, most of the AI-generated images and videos I’ve seen aren’t a convincing substitute for the projects made by flesh-and-blood creators, since they almost always possess some bizarre alien quality that makes my skin crawl.
However, the recent advances in AI shouldn’t distract you from the fact that humans have always had the potential to produce works of art that are completely uncanny, off-putting, and devoid of logic.
Enter Fabrizio De Angelis’ Man Hunt (1984), a neo western so lazy and nonsensical in its construction that you think the script was written during a drunken round of Mad Libs.
Admittedly, this does result in somewhat of an engaging viewing experience, since you’re constantly left wondering when the next wacky story development or plot hole will pop up.
But taken as a whole, Man Hunt’s pervasive weirdness can’t sustain a feature-length runtime and it just leaves you with the creeping feeling that your home has sprung a gas leak.
Some may look at this film’s synopsis on IMDB or Wikipedia and conclude that I’m being a little hyperbolic, since the set-up is typical western shenanigans.
The plot of Man Hunt revolves around a nameless stranger (Ethan Wayne), who buys a pair of horses at a rodeo and accidently wanders onto some land belonging to a corrupt rancher (Ernest Borgnine).
After the rancher steals the horses for himself, the stranger gets thrown in prison after attempting to retake his property.
The rest of the film details the stranger’s attempts to escape from captivity and clear his name, all the while trying to stay one step ahead of the law.
You’ve probably seen a variation of this plot in a dozen other movies, but it’s the way that De Angelis and his crew tell this story that’s truly baffling.
For one thing, the stranger’s first escape from prison is never shown or discussed on screen, even though it’s supposed to represent a major turning point in the story.
Before you can get your head around such a weird creative decision, the stranger is immediately caught and gets thrown back behind bars, leading to his second escape minutes later.
After hijacking a bus and blasting his way through an army of cops, the stranger is then given safe passage thanks to Borgnine’s corrupt rancher, whose change of heart comes out of nowhere and is never given any explanation.
This kind of plot progression would make sense if Man Hunt was a comedy or Zucker Brothers-esque parody of old prison break movies.
But the tone of the film is deadly serious throughout its 91-minute runtime, which exposes the grim reality that De Angelis and his team have no idea what they’re doing.
That lack of direction is laid bare in the first four minutes of the film, which consists almost entirely of boring b-roll footage of the rodeo where the stranger buys his horses.
This opening remains a pretty blatant example of “Shooting the Rodeo,” a term coined by RedLetterMedia that describes the tendency for directors of low-budget movies to pad their runtime by filming real public events.
Man Hunt is an especially egregious example of this trope, since De Angelis lingers on this intro for way too long and includes elements like unnecessary slow motion to add insult to injury.
These strange filmmaking techniques persist throughout the entire narrative, so much so that I was almost convinced that De Angelis was trying to create the kind of surreal, dream-like atmosphere one would find in a David Lynch movie.
But unlike Lynch’s works, Man Hunt is a pretty boring and lifeless affair for long stretches of its runtime, which is made even worse by a lead performance that is dull as dishwater.
For those of you who are unaware, Ethan Wayne is the son of Hollywood icon John Wayne, who found work as an actor throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.
A brief scan of Wayne Jr.’s acting credits reveal that he never really made it as a major leading man like his dad, and in Man Hunt it’s easy to see why.
Pretty much every line that comes out of his mouth is stiff and robotic, almost like he’s a non-English speaker who learned the language for this role.
Wayne’s monotone performance extends to his blank facial expressions, which I’m assuming he employed to come across as a stoic western hero archetype just like his father.
But Wayne just doesn’t have the presence or charisma to pull this off and ends up looking like a pretender, especially when he’s asked to do anything physical.
This includes a couple of embarrassing running scenes, where Wayne gets to show that he has all the dignified grace and coordination of a young Steven Seagal.
To be fair, even a lauded thespian like Orson Wells would have trouble grasping this material, since it never finds its footing in a consistent style or tone.
Instead, the filmmakers decide to put a bunch of other movies in a blender, with the beginning of Man Hunt serving as a clumsy fusion of First Blood (1982) and Cool Hand Luke (1967).
The last third of the film ultimately becomes a downscaled version of Clint Eastwood’s The Gauntlet (1977), where the stranger has to evade an army of trigger-happy cops.
And to the film’s credit, these chase sequences do at least feature a lot of impressive pyrotechnics and automotive stunt work.
One scene near the end of the film stands out as a particular highlight, where a police cruiser flips over and showers the concrete street with broken glass.
Seconds later, two cruisers collide into each and explode, treating us to the amusing sight of flaming wheels skipping down the road.
All this technical expertise comes to a head in the film’s climax, where [SPOILERS] Wayne gets cornered in a mobile home and the cops open fire on him for what feels like five minutes.
This one-sided shooting is so excessive that it becomes a complete farce and instantly reminded me of a famous gag from The Naked Gun 21/2(1991).
Unfortunately, the filmmakers had to ruin this fun time by delivering one of the dumbest endings that’s ever been committed to celluloid.
Once Wayne emerges from this bullet-riddled trailer, completely unscathed of course, the cops go to arrest him, but he has a secret weapon up his sleeve.
Instead of carrying a gun or smoke bomb, the stranger produces a bill of sale which proves that he legally bought the horses at the beginning of the story.
This magical receipt completely freezes the corrupt cops in their place and forces them to let the stranger go, even though they were trying to unlawfully cut him into Swiss cheese seconds earlier.
Of course, this piece of paper shouldn’t absolve Wayne of all the property damage and lives he put in mortal danger during his multiple escape attempts.
But I guess we’re well past the point of pretending like Man Hunt takes place in a world that adheres to logic or reason, unless there’s some real legal precedent that gives you immunity from all manner of prosecution if you simply yell “It’s okay, officer! I have a receipt!!”
I know I’ve spent a lot of time on this one plot point, but I think it’s a microcosm of how disorienting this film is as a whole.
Almost every aspect of this project feels artificial or randomly generated, from its script to the acting to the musical score.
Part of me feels like this comes down to De Angelis’ inexperience as a director, since Man Hunt is only his third feature film after nearly a decade of producing Italian genre schlock.
Perhaps that jump into the director’s chair was too much to handle, so he resorted to throwing a bunch disparate American film tropes at the wall to see what would stick.
De Angelis’ scattershot approach to directing Man Hunt is probably what triggered the AI comparison I brought up earlier, since that technology (in its current form) is only able to generate new works of art using pieces of pre-existing material.
Some may argue that this is no different than the creative process most humans undertake, and maybe there is some merit to that line of thinking.
But with a man-made trainwreck like Man Hunt, I can at least trace the creative influences of the people who worked on it and see that the director went on to embrace his exploitation roots by making films like Killer Crocodile (1989), Karate Rock (1990), and Breakfast With Dracula (1993).
This form of film analysis is infinitely more interesting than looking at the prompts and lines of code that went into creating an AI-generated blockbuster, which sounds about as fun as filing my taxes.
I would much rather look into the history of a deeply imperfect filmmaker than stare into the gaping maw of a machine-driven algorithm, even if the former ends up producing a completely incomprehensible piece of shit like Man Hunt.
Verdict:
3/10
Corner store companion:
Buffalo Ranch Pringles (because this film is seriously lacking in real western flavour)
Fun facts:
-Release date:
Nov. 30, 1984 (West Germany)
Dec. 6, 1984 (Italy)
-Outside of the film’s original Italian title of Cane Arrabbiato (which roughly translates to “Mad Dog”), Man Hunt was also known as Uppercut Man in France.
-For most of his directing career, Fabrizio De Angelis was credited under the more American-sounding name of “Larry Ludman,” including for his work on Man Hunt. De Angelis also directed under the alias of “Ted Russell” for Breakfast With Dracula (1993).
-As an actor, Ethan Wayne is probably best known for portraying Storm Logan on The Bold and the Beautiful. Wayne played this character throughout 217 episodes of the long-running soap opera, eventually retiring from acting after he left the show for good in 2003.
–Man Hunt can currently be watched in its entirety on YouTube (with Asian subtitles).
Corner Store Cinema 