Quartile rating: 8/10 · 2 ratings
Ricky is a defiant young city kid who finds himself on the run with his cantankerous foster uncle in the wild New Zealand bush. A national manhunt ensues, and the two are forced to put aside their differences and work together to survive.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople is elevated chiefly by Taika Waititi's singular directorial voice — deadpan Kiwi humor, genuine warmth, and a literary sensibility drawn from Barry Crump's source novel. Sam Neill and Julian Dennison share an extraordinary chemistry, with Dennison's debut performance being a genuine revelation and Neill doing some of his finest work. The New Zealand bush is photographed with real beauty and wit, making the landscape a character in itself. Novelty is high because Waititi's tone — comic, elegiac, absurdist, yet emotionally grounded — is genuinely one-of-a-kind. The plot is charming but leans on a fairly familiar mismatched-duo/road-movie structure, and the ending, while emotionally satisfying, resolves somewhat tidily compared to the anarchic energy of what precedes it.