Episode 96 - The Hunt

[00:00:01] Welcome to Movie Mistrial, where we put movies on trial to determine if they're cinematic masterpieces or flawed experiences. I'm Johannes. And I'm Raji. Today we're taking on the emotionally charged and deeply controversial The Hunt. The Hunt, or Jogden in Danish, was released in 2012, directed by Thomas Winterberg and written by Tobias Lindholm.

[00:00:25] This Danish drama centers on Lucas, a mild-mannered kindergarten teacher played by Mats Mikkelsen, who finds himself the target of a devastating and life-altering accusation. In the film, Lucas is wrongly accused of sexual abuse by one of his young students, which leads to a chain reaction in his close-knit community. The film is relentless in its exploration of mob mentality, innocence, and the impact of rumors.

[00:00:49] Mads Mikkelsen's performance won him the Best Actor Award at Cannes, and The Hunt was widely acclaimed, even in earning an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. So, is The Hunt a necessary exploration of human nature, or is it too disturbing and controversial to be called a classic? We're here to dig into both sides and decide just that. And today, we have special guests to help discuss this movie.

[00:01:14] Yes, I was invited to their show recently. Dustin and Kyle from The History According to Hollywood Podcast. Why don't you introduce yourselves? Yeah, so, I'm Dustin. I'm the non-historian side of our podcast. I'm Kyle. I am both the historian and the pretty face, which doesn't matter because it's a podcast, but just so you all know. It's an audio-only podcast for the time being.

[00:01:41] But, yeah, we've been doing it. Actually, tomorrow will be one year. So, before this, I guess it'll be actually after this goes out. We'll have released episodes for a year. We're doing seasons. We're not doing it completely just one week after the other. So, currently we're in season three. Um, and yeah, it's been going great. We take a movie per episode and we talk about the movie itself.

[00:02:09] And then we also talk about the history that the movie is either accurately or inaccurately portraying. That can be people, places, time periods, weaponry that they have, lots of things. So, you never, you never quite know what we're going to get into, but we try to cover the generalized questions about historical movies. It is a PG-13 podcast though, because Kyle really likes to use bad words when he describes history. So.

[00:02:39] That's pretty cool. I do enjoy, I do enjoy the premise. I think one of the things that we, uh, we always fall into, uh, the trap of is believing everything we see in movies is real. So, and I'm going to give you one example. Uh, I was watching this 1980s film called The Gods Must Be Crazy last night. Um, and it's a South African film. Um, and it's about, you know, it's partly about, um, the Bushman tribe.

[00:03:08] A man who, who was, who lived in the bushes all his life with a small tribe of fans, of family. And, uh, a Coca-Cola bottle falls from the sky. Um, and they had never seen a, they'd never seen it, a bottle of Coca-Cola before. And they realized they could use it for a lot of things, but then it introduced the idea of ownership to the tribe. And they started to fight over the Coca-Cola bottle.

[00:03:35] And eventually it led to physical altercations. And the man says, I'm going to take this bottle. I'm going to throw it away, um, at the end of the world. Uh, and basically there's a journey. It's a, it's a funny film, but it also follows the journey of this man as he tries to take this bottle and throw it away at the end, at the center, at the end of the world. But what the funny scene was, there was a, there was a, there was a night and, uh, uh, a rhinoceros comes in.

[00:04:02] They lit a fire and a rhinoceros comes in and stems out the fire. And the narrator says, and, uh, here are the rhinoceroses. They are the, uh, the fire stoppers of the jungle of the, of the, of the African jungle or whatever. And throughout my life, I believed that was true until yesterday when my wife goes, you know, that's not true. Right. And I was like, what? It has to be. So basically my whole life has been informed by that film.

[00:04:31] And I just found out last night that it's not entirely true. So I think you guys are doing a great service. Yeah. We tried to cover, uh, lots of things that people believe. And we're like, not quite, not only, uh, not only about history, but also about like kind of behind the scenes and the movies themselves. Um, so we try to cover quite a bit and get a lot of information, but it's not like a history lecture either. We're, we, we go back and forth quite a bit. We're spicy. We'll put it that way.

[00:05:00] There's nothing that makes a podcast more interesting than spice. And then, you know, I kind of feel like, uh, in the eighties, the South African film called the gods must be crazy. Could also be a biopic for Elon Musk. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Uh, he found Coke, Coca-Cola bottles too. I'm sure. Um, yikes.

[00:05:26] Anyway, um, let's, let's move on with our lives and not talk about that too. Um, I, so the way we are doing this today, we're trying this is podcast versus podcast. So, uh, our guests get to decide heads or tails. No, for the coin. No, Kyle, you go ahead, man. I don't know. It feels pretty 50 50 to me.

[00:05:54] Uh, we'll go, we'll go tails. Why not? Heads. It is. So do you want to argue for this movie, Johannes? Or do you want to argue against? So Kyle lost that fast. Come on, man. Man, I told you it's 50 50. All right. According to Google, who knows what they cooked up. Um, dude, that's a good question. Roger. Do we? I think we should go for the film. Okay. Let's do it. We're going to give you guys. Dang it.

[00:06:25] Oh, wait, you wanted to go against them. No, I want to go against the film. Okay. We're going against the film. You're going against the film. I would, I feel like I can go against the film more than I can go for the film. All right, cool. Cool. I will, I will give you guys the opportunity to go against the film. Perfect. And the witness will address this court as judge or your honor. All right. So you guys go first. Let's, uh, let's hear your opening gambit. All right. If it pleases the court, go ahead, lead prosecutor, Dustin.

[00:06:55] So I feel like whenever you're looking at a movie like this, you have to look at intent. What was the purpose? Why are we making a movie? Sure. We can make a movie that is about something that's dark, something that's it's real. And that's something I will say is that it's, it's, it's realistic throughout.

[00:07:14] And I mean, the, the events that are happening in the film are definitely a part of our society and a part of, you know, the world we live in, unfortunately. But you have to bring it back to intent. What was the purpose of it? And essentially all we do is we explore and explore for two hours. And I feel like all of the payoffs were exactly what you would expect. And at no point did I really learn anything.

[00:07:44] I just kind of went like, yeah, that's a realistic human reaction. And that's also like, even the things that were more, um, more radical and a more irrational. Um, do you guys talk spoilers on this or do we? Yes. Okay.

[00:08:03] So things like the rock through the window and killing the dog, um, things like that are irrational, but I still feel like are fairly like expected responses from a community that feels like there's this monster living amongst them.

[00:08:25] Um, and so I just feel like we, we spent a lot of time exploring, but never uncovering anything that I didn't already think was there. So yeah, just going back to intent. What was the purpose? You know? Yeah, I'll, uh, I'll add to that. Sorry. My little blood sugar thing is incorrectly screaming at me on my phone, but he passes out.

[00:08:52] So if I, if I start slurring my words, somebody send a Snickers through the screen, please. Uh, but so I will back up what Dustin said about predictability without power, um, in the sense that I also think it's overly predictable in a movie specifically to have past bonds to somebody mean almost nothing for the sake of the plot.

[00:09:15] Um, and for me, the lack of second guessing anything that was said about Lucas, the main character, the lack of a willingness to dig deeper and the immediate grab hold of like mob mentality weirdly might be the least realistic part of the movie. Um, which to me, um, which to me, sap some of its power because those things with somebody who's so respected and so loved in real life would usually take more time than that.

[00:09:44] So the combination of realism without a seeming message behind it combined with an unrealistic timeline of how quickly mass hysteria would consume a small community who know this man so deeply and so intimately, um, made it feel less legitimate almost. All right. So interestingly enough, I, uh, I think you, I, I feel like that is actually one of the stronger parts of the film.

[00:10:13] I think in a sense we have, we have people who've grown up with each other. It's a small community who've known each other for a long time, who've appreciated, um, they basically, they jump into the water and everybody's jumping into the, they've seen themselves naked, jumped into the water at the beginning of the film.

[00:10:32] Everybody here knows themselves. Um, and because of the strong, um, the strong feeling about the, um, the SA situation, um, it creates a, what do you call it? A separation of friends and family from one another, which becomes extremely, um, extremely tense.

[00:10:55] And I think what makes this movie work for me is that we've seen historical, um, evidence that this is exactly how this whole thing plays out. You know, um, you guys are more familiar with the, you know, Salem witch trials, um, how those mob mentality always, uh, in fact, the fact that even rats are attributed to the plague, um, things along those lines.

[00:11:21] It's like once the whole community agrees on something, it becomes difficult for them to take it out of their heads. And, uh, it kind of becomes the judge, the main driven, the driven, the real reason why they push for things. And the main point I was going to talk about was the idea that at the very beginning of the film, we get introduced to this young girl. And the teacher says, you know, she has a vivid imagination. Um, and she emphasizes that several times.

[00:11:49] And then by the time, you know, Lucas goes to visit his best friend and they're sitting across from each other in the room, the best friend knows she has a vivid imagination. He turns to Lucas and goes, she never lies. But what does vivid imagination have to do with never lying? Basically, if you have a vivid imagination, you, you mush the truth.

[00:12:10] Um, so it's, it's interesting to see how that one incident creates a myopia in the minds of everybody in the town. And that leads to, um, a humiliation of a man who has to basically go through the whole town while everybody stones him and screams shame. I, I liked it up to the point where then it turned into all the others that are having the same thing.

[00:12:38] And I kind of felt like if they would have, they had to do that in order to write the character of Lucas getting out of it because they described the basement that doesn't exist. Because if you just go off the one story, it's, it's kind of impossible to prove whether it happened or not. But now that you have a bunch of stories, that's kind of what like got him out of it at the start, you know, to where he was arrested and then he's released because they're realizing these descriptions that even though they're the same,

[00:13:08] and it sounds like rumors spreading on a playground, uh, they don't match up with the facts. And so I feel like the, I, I kind of, I kind of agree with you on the, the mob mentality. The first, the first thing is that having a kid, same with you, I'm sure if it doesn't matter who it is, if the, if anyone is accused of doing anything to my kid, like that's going to be like an instant, I don't care who you are. You and I are no longer, you know, acquaintances period.

[00:13:37] Um, but the fact that it's spread to all these other parents, I don't know. I, I, I, I, and again, I saw the mob mentality coming, but I was also like, uh, suddenly any, these are the signs and symptoms. If your kid exhibits one of them, then you're like, Oh no. And you're asking them, you're kind of planting these seeds, you know, planting the ideas in their heads. And it's like, I don't know. I feel like they kind of, they started on the right foot, but kind of veered left, you know?

[00:14:05] I think the, that again, that's the strength of this film, right? Because it's, it, the, uh, at face value, the, uh, the villain in this is, uh, the Lucas character, right? That's, that, that's the person that gets vilified. Um, and we all think that's not warranted. It's not right. Right.

[00:14:28] But the real villain is a greater, his boss, uh, who, who just goes in from one thing that she heard and imprints her, uh, her, uh, imagination of what happened on, not only on the kid, but then also onto the, um, the dude that she calls in to interview the kid to get a second opinion.

[00:14:52] And then onto all the parents, uh, because she's, she's just alluding to something happened, but here are symptoms. And if you see symptoms and kids have symptoms all the time, I assume, I don't know. I'm not around kids a lot, but I would think so. Uh, and if, if you already pre predestined and pre-programmed to look out for something, then you see, uh, you can find those, right? So she, she is the person that is completely taking this and spiraling it out of control.

[00:15:22] And she's the master villain in this. Um, and, and she's kind of the architect of, of, uh, his downfall. And I think that is, that is kind of the brilliance that we're seeing because, uh, they have one interaction. She has one conversation with him. And I think the, the, the fascinating thing in that conversation that they have is that he's not even really, uh, rebutting it. He's just like, okay.

[00:15:49] Um, and I think he's just coming from a, you know, me like what, right? Like, like the, the fact that he doesn't rebut it at all tells me that he, he thinks his merits basically speak for themselves. Um, that like, he's comfortable around the kids. The kids are comfortable around him. They really enjoy playing with him and all that, all that kind of stuff. Uh, so, so him just being like, well, okay, let's figure this out.

[00:16:19] You know, it's, it's weird. Um, tell, tells me a lot, but she is completely going like to a million from zero immediately with this because I think she just has this, well, she, she, she has this thing. Kids don't lie. Right. And I think the, the, the other thing is that, that this film does brilliantly is fundamentally that's true.

[00:16:43] And she didn't necessarily lie, but she just got all these different threads from different things and set them at, at the wrong time, not fully understanding what she's even saying. Right. Like she, she got, she got that prompt, uh, from, from her brother's friend that showed her the, the spicy picture and gave her the line. The real crime in the movie. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, she, she was abused basically, but, but, but completely different people in a completely different way.

[00:17:14] Right. And, um, like she, she, she doesn't even understand. She didn't even understand what she was saying. I don't think. Right. Like, so, and then it just kind of spirals out of, out of that. Right. Right. And, and based on the fact that, that, um, the, the greater person is, is so honed in on kids don't lie. So this had to be true.

[00:17:38] Completely disregarding the, the imagination is kind of brilliant because those both realities are true in this. Right. Like she, she did not lie, but she did. Right. Because she just don't, doesn't understand the problem. Mm-hmm. So I will rebuttal that. Um, those are, those are good points. But, uh, actually I, so I work at a school and I have last month just took my mandated

[00:18:04] reporter training, which here in the U S is the standard for how you deal with situations like that. Um, so I'm not going to project knowledge of the specifics onto Denmark or Danish schools because I have no idea what their procedure is. But generally speaking, um, for me, one of the weaknesses of this movie is assuming that there's absolutely no official legal recourse, official process, official investigation into events like this.

[00:18:30] So again, this is the United States, but in the United States, if you hear that from a child, regardless of whether you believe it or not, you are legally mandated, assuming you're a teacher or a school professional to report it to your state government. The state government, if it ranks high enough on their, Oh crap list, we'll send somebody out to investigate it. If you talk about it with anybody else that didn't directly hear it, you can be legally prosecuted regardless of how it turns out.

[00:18:59] If I am Greta and I hear that and I bring in an acquaintance instead of a professional, maybe the acquaintance is a professional, but it's unclear in the movie. Um, and then before anything is said to me by the school, by the law enforcement, by anyone at all, I just go spread this rumor that, and I increasingly stoke it. So it goes from, I don't believe it to, I maybe believe it too. I definitely believe it. And that's a natural human process.

[00:19:27] Um, because you don't want to think that you're being deceived over something so intense, but to then project that onto everybody else without any evidence whatsoever, except for this one girl's testimony. And the girl is known to stretch the truth and have a big imagination is not unrealistic. What's unrealistic in the movie is that there are absolutely no safeguards in place to keep this from spiraling out of control so quickly because public opinion is going to be public opinion.

[00:19:53] But legally, at least here in the U S there are things in place that usually keep that from happening. And I can't speak for Denmark. Maybe it's different, but I would have to assume that they don't just let accusations like that kind of boil and go along and just immediately assume everything is how it is said to be because that's not how criminal investigations were. So now I'm going to ask you a question real quick about situations that happens in small towns.

[00:20:20] And I think that even in America, there are leeways given for small towns like this. And I think, um, in scenarios like this, usually where small towns don't have the resources of a big city, is it also the case or is, um, can we take the story that exists right now that exists in this movie and translate it to a small town in America where the resources are not as, as, as crazy.

[00:20:48] I feel like it's translatable. Oh, I, I, so my, my, my credit, my prosecution, so to speak on this point is like public hysteria is going to be public hysteria. And even though I mentioned earlier that it's probably a little too streamlined, that's going to happen regardless of what the legality is. It's the lack of any attention paid to the legal side of this in the movie for such a legally based thing, I think takes the power away from it because in a small town, yes, the odds

[00:21:17] of it not being completely like investigated correctly are higher because that's just the nature of close knit communities with a lack of funding. The problem is that we don't see it investigated at all by any stretch of the imagination until it's revealed to us that whatever investigation has been done has revealed that it's very clearly untrue. Um, and it kind of just comes out of left field. And so for me, I, I argue that it takes away from the power of the public hysteria that there

[00:21:44] is no law enforcement aspect in this movie because what would really, I think, drive it home is if the investigation very quickly uncovers that this probably didn't happen, but then public opinion is convinced that it did. And then that's the real tragedy of the situation is facts versus people's perceived truth, I think. Um, and so the lack of any investigation into the investigation part of the movie kind of takes away from how terrifying it would be because legally, you know, you're in the right

[00:22:12] and you've proven you're in the right this whole time, but then you're still getting beat at the butcher shop for something that like the community knows quote unquote, you didn't do at this point. Like they've said out loud, you didn't do it. So I think in a sense that I think this is where the movie actually is strongest because in a sense, what you're asking for the legal, the legal justification, the legal validation of this particular stuff did happen.

[00:22:38] Even if it wasn't, um, on screen, we know that there was a court case. We know that the day, um, the day, um, Brun sat down on the bed with his son was the day he was reassuring him that he was his godfather. And no matter what happens that he's going to be by his side. Um, and minutes later, he's like, your dad is on his way here. He just got freed by, by the courts. Um, and the interesting thing was that it was after that scenario that some of the darkest

[00:23:07] things happened, you know, the, he's been free legally. Um, but you know, somebody still, um, shot his dog or, you know, and he had to bury him. And you know, that took an emotional toll on him and the very last shot in the scene, even a year after all of this has happened, somebody is taking a shot at him while his son was trying to go through the whole process.

[00:23:33] So I feel like you kind of walked into a pro for the fuss on that one. Um, and I feel, but I will talk about one, one other point, um, before I hand it over the, the performances by the characters, uh, by Mads Mikkelsen. Um, and you know, Betty Gilpin's performance was also, I mean, initially I wasn't so convinced, but as the movie proceeded, I think I kind of got what, where the direction she was going

[00:24:02] because throughout this whole process, at no point did I go that I knew at all times in this movie that she was a kid. Like everybody's portraying their own emotions and putting it on the kid in a sense. Um, and she was guiltless in this whole scenario. So I think that the fact that she was able to do that was also a strong position for her.

[00:24:30] Uh, just going, taking a step back real quick again with the whole, uh, I, I, I see both sides of it with the legal side. It is pre it's present, but it's very quick, not very quickly, but kind of grazed over. It's not a very prevalent part and I can see how you, yeah, it made sense that like, because that's not the focus of the movie. The focus is on, um, the, the town and the, again, the mob mentality kind of spreading.

[00:24:58] What, again, what I kind of come back to is the, what, what are we, what are we trying to say here? What are we trying to get? What is the point? What is the message that we're getting to? Um, you talked about how Greta was a good villain, but she's not like, we're not supposed to really dislike her. We almost feel like she's just making a mistake because she, she's probably going about it in the best way that she thinks she could or should, but she's not. And it's like, it's a mistake.

[00:25:28] I don't really know if the, the line, like the narrative is easy to follow there. And then again, going to that final shot of someone shooting at him while he's on the hunt. And so we saw that already in the, the looks while they were in the, is it the church that they're at right at the very end when he's about to leave for his first hunt or his son's about to leave for his first hunt. You can see it in people looking at him in the, in the expression, this kind of hatred and this kind of like, they're still questioning him.

[00:25:56] And he says it wonderfully in his reaction of he's trying to move past this, but some people still look at him like he's the monster he was made into wrongly. Um, and I really feel like someone literally trying to kill him. I don't even know if they were trying to kill him because they had a second shot at him, but they didn't take it. So I almost feel like it was like a trying to scare him, um, was just kind of over the top and not necessary.

[00:26:24] I would have rather it been left at just the, the looks on people's faces. Um, because again, we've created this very realistic world where with very realistic characters and then to end it with kind of like the most irrational thing we've seen in the movie yet, it's just kind of, to me, it was a little bit like taking away from what they were trying to say. I think if, if, if we go back to the title, the hunt, um,

[00:26:56] the one thing that I find pretty, pretty brilliant in this film is a setup. Um, and, and there's a couple of setups that happened, uh, immediate, all the way in the beginning, uh, they go on a hunt and they establish that apparently nobody in Denmark is wearing any safety gear when they go hunting. Right. Which brilliantly sets up, uh, the finale of this because there's again, plausible deniability

[00:27:23] of somebody shooting at him and potentially killing him. Oops. Mistake. Mistake. You know, I mistook him. Um, which I think is great. I think with, with the title in mind, uh, this also kind of enforces this, this, uh, feeling that he will have for the rest of his life that he will always have eyes on him and he's always in danger because the people have this, um, this, this knowledge that is not true, but,

[00:27:52] or this preconceived notion, I guess, about him now. Right. So he's always going to be hunted, uh, in a way. So I, I think, uh, that that's brilliant. Another thing that they set up a couple of times, um, is the, um, his, uh, eye twitching when he's lying, like he's, he's doing a facial expression. He's not the only one that does it. The little kid does it too. The kid does too. Yeah. The kids I feel like is, is really obvious. She shifts her whole face. Right. Right.

[00:28:21] But she, she does it too. Right. So, um, uh, again, I think that is interesting. And the, the fascinating thing there is she is not lying when she talks to her parents and she tells her parents separately, like, I just said things I, I, like he didn't do it. And they, they don't believe him because they were just, you know, focused on, oh my God, my kid was abused. Understandable. Right. Completely understandable.

[00:28:52] But also just not listening to your kid anymore. And you, I would think you know your kid and you know when the kid is lying and why not. Right. So, um, I, I think the brilliance of this film is, is kind of living in that gray zone and really being in that, uh, ambiguous kind of vibey zone where you can kind of feel like, ooh, that would suck if that happened to you. And you would be like, ooh, crap. Right.

[00:29:18] Like, like, especially when you live in a small community or grew up, like you can super relate to that. Like, um, like how do you, how do you come up from that? And I think, uh, and that's where this film excels, which it should be on this list. That's why it should be on this list. What is the one, uh, can you give me like the one before and one after this? Where is this? What is, what two movies is this sitting between right now? It's sitting.

[00:29:46] We had, um, Star Wars, the Jedi, uh, the, the last of the original three. Okay. And then Eternal Sunshine. Return of the Jedi. Oh, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And previously before that, before the Jedi, uh, movie was, uh, Toy Story 3.

[00:30:08] So to up the, so to up the ante here, the prosecution would like to ask, um, not necessarily to debate whether this is a quality movie or not, but to, to question why of all thrillers and all psychological dramas and all mass hysteria dramas, does this specific film deserve to be where it's at on the IMDb list?

[00:30:32] Because points brought up by the defense of validity aside, um, it didn't for me watching it, it didn't hit me any harder than any other just well-executed psychological thriller. And any other well-executed movie that takes aim at what makes people irrational, crazy animals. Ha ha. Takes aim. Any movie that hunts down the human psyche, so to speak.

[00:30:59] Um, it's because though I'm supposed to be going against why this movie isn't the spot is that I will never claim it's not a good film because it just, it is. And I feel like it would, it would invalidate my, it would invalidate any argument I made if I tried to say it wasn't well-made because it is. Um, but is it really any stronger than any other psychological thriller or any other psychological crime thriller?

[00:31:22] Like actually, or is it just, is it the, the bias I think that sometimes happens of this is a foreign film that you can enjoy while reading subtitles and therefore it must be something special because I think that that happens sometimes too, especially here in the U S where we refuse to learn other languages is, oh my gosh, I liked that movie and I had to read it. It must be really, really good. So, and it did come out at a time where foreign films were really starting to take off in a,

[00:31:51] in, up in popularity for American audiences. So I'll give you, I'll give you some reasons why I think that this movie did. I mean, just to be clear, this movie is number 96 on, on the, on the AMDB list. So it's not like sitting in the top 10. That's number one. Number two, I do think that this movie covers some topics that are extremely uncomfortable to, to cover.

[00:32:19] And one of the things that makes it brilliant is that number one, the audience knows nothing happened. The, the main characters know nothing happened, but the whole movie plays out like something happened. Um, and that tense mode, that idea where you, everybody's well aware, everybody who's watching this is watching the breakdown and it's creating this emotional feeling in you.

[00:32:48] I was watching this movie very angry. I was like, oh wow. Look, she's going into the room and telling every single person like she knows. No, she doesn't. Um, everybody knows, everybody acts like your friends, but they don't know that you have a basement. You don't have a basement in your house. You know, I was going through this movie feeling I was emotionally, um, manipulated successfully,

[00:33:12] um, by number one, the idea that everybody around him believes that this is happening. Um, even though I knew it wasn't happening. And I think that's where the success of the film lies. Like the audience knows this is not an ambiguous film. We all know that it didn't happen, but everybody else in the film is playing the fact that it did happen. And the tone of the film is a film that feels like something like that did happen.

[00:33:41] So that's where the brilliance of this whole thing plays out. Yeah. And to add to that, I think, uh, it needs to be a foreign film because had this been an American film, it would not be as effective because I think the subject matter would not be dealt with in such a sharp pointed, uh, story. Well, it would have been 30 minutes because either he would have killed someone or someone would have killed him and that would have been the end of the movie.

[00:34:09] But yeah, uh, that, that's all, that's all we have, but we can move to the sidebar. All right. Let's move to the sidebar. Overruled. Sidebar. Guilty. Speculation. Hearsay. Bailiff. Briefcase. Disregard. In my chamber. Stop Beaver and the witness. I rest. We could totally be lawyers. Sidebar. Sidebar. That's my little jingle. The bar on the side. So I will say that the biggest, the biggest flaw, uh, for this film for me, um, was the

[00:34:37] idea that everybody was so close to each other. Um, and such a small detail about the fact that he took everybody's kids to the basement, basically perpetuated in that town. Nobody stopped and said, he doesn't have a basement. When did he get a basement? We've been going to his house to play cards. He has a basement. Even his best friends, they had pictures of them, um, growing up together.

[00:35:07] His best friends, since they were kids, didn't realize he didn't have a basement. He didn't stop to think about that. Um, and I think that's the biggest flaw in this film. Um, they set up this strong knit relationship and then they, uh, they kind of blew it with that. One, one thing that I think was really strong about this film. Now that we get to speak to the other side of the aisle is that I do like the subtle

[00:35:32] setup that, um, the child, the girl who originally accuses him, her parents, though he's Lucas's best friend, neither of them are super emotionally stable people. They're not abusive and they're not neglectful, but it's implied several times that they are not like logical, calm, think things through before they react to people. Um, in fact, the first encounter we see Lucas have with the child is they're having an argument over something stupid, like taking the kid to school.

[00:35:59] So much of an argument that she feels like she has to sit on the sidewalk to get away from it. And so I think that was a nice, we all love who we love. We all love our friends. We all have that friend who we don't trust to think things through or to make a logical choice. And that is Brun is that friend. He's he like, he doesn't think about things. He just gets mad and then he just goes. And so I think that's a very powerful, doesn't make him a bad parent, doesn't make a bad person. And the movie doesn't try to say it does. It just makes him really susceptible to this kind of thing.

[00:36:29] Sure. Uh, the very opening of the movie was there not children present at the late that he jumps into? I don't remember. Not like as younger of children, but like his, I don't know, like younger teenage kids. They're definitely people who are not quite adults at this late or wherever they are, where he's jumping in nude. And I don't, I feel like that, I mean, okay.

[00:36:58] So from a film perspective, I always assume everything is on purpose. Nothing is accidental. So I'm assuming that it kind of shows the hypocrisy of you could have, what you could have not, I want to say traumatized, but like what you were doing probably was inappropriate. Uh, and then the same group of guys is going to then go after this guy who didn't do anything

[00:37:24] and who's still fully, he's the only one who's fully clothed, who jumps in the lake to help his friend come back to the dock. Like, uh, kind of shows the hypocrisy there. Um, like you, but you nailed it whenever you're like, you were, you were angry throughout this film. Yeah. This film infuriated me from start to finish a hundred percent. I kind of feel like I disagree with, with the moniker that I think that's just kind of

[00:37:52] a European, European thing where it's, it's, it's just not a scandalized being naked in a way. Right. But, but, um, aside from that, I was pissed, but, uh, watching this film, but, but kind of for a weird reason, I think after me too happened, I, I was annoyed at this film because I feel like it's giving people in power a plausible thing to point us at this film and be like, see, see, people lie about this.

[00:38:21] I didn't do anything wrong. People lie about this. And it made me so angry. Yeah. But I mean, like it couldn't be, it was, it was proven and she admitted that she made it up, which I feel like is definitely less prominent, but still happens to of people making up stories about people. And so I, I don't, I don't know. I understand. I kind of thought it was, but it's 2012. We live in a different world in 2012, but I was like, I don't think you would make this

[00:38:51] movie today. If you did, it would be the other way around. Yeah. I think you still could. I agree that I don't think it takes away from the movie, but I agree that there are unsavory characters out there who will use any example that they possibly can to undermine like the reality of situation. I appreciated in the movie that even the godfather of Lucas's son, who's on his side the whole time and is like, there's no way he did this does say, usually children are telling the

[00:39:17] truth because that is an important part that the majority, just statistically, the majority of the time, if a child says something sexual about an adult, something happened and it's usually something unsavory. And as you guys pointed out, something did happen, but it's a bunch of unrelated things that a angry child is using to just be an angry child about. And so that I did think it handled pretty well is that it at least gave a side nod to like most of the time in this situation, the child is telling the truth or enough of the truth

[00:39:47] that something is there. This time it doesn't happen to be that way. One thing that I don't know if I disliked it, but one thing that kept bugging me was that just because the guy is 6'5", Johan, the character Johan, because he's 6'5 and massive, he can just beat the crap out of everybody he encounters and there's nothing. Because even... Consequences. Well, and to bring up the point of small towns, okay, even in small towns, there's law and order. Like in every small town ever. We may not like it, but there is.

[00:40:16] And the turning point for me in terms of not liking Johan specifically, which, hey, a movie where we care about the side characters is always good, right? Is when he physically assaults a teenager just because he got smacked in the face. And he doesn't just smack him the one time. Like he is going to beat the living crap out of this kid until his friends pull him off. And I think he needs to be there because there's always the one character who thinks that they can do...

[00:40:43] Like there's always a person in a mob hysteria who thinks they can do whatever they want. But maybe him being massive was just a little too on the nose for me. Like, okay, so just because the guy's huge means that he can't control his temper. All right. Okay. Sure. Why not? You know, I was actually... That particular scene really rubbed me the wrong way too. Um, I felt like, you know, um, that was totally uncalled for, um, especially given, you know,

[00:41:14] at the end when everybody's acting like nothing happened, uh, in the last year and everybody was trying to sweep it under the rug. I would, I mean, the problem is I didn't grow up in America. So stuff like that happens. Stuff like that happens. I grew up in Africa. I grew up in Nigeria specifically. Um, and you know, your parents can delegate your ass whooping to somebody else. Um, so in a sense, I believe it to an extent, but he was, he was vicious.

[00:41:43] He was going with a, I think he was going with a closed fist and he was attacking the kid. And, and the fact that it took everybody around him several minutes to be able to react to that kind of felt a little bit, um, weird, weird. Um, but I will say this too. I was also taken aback by the fact that he was spitting at the kid, you know, there were, there was tension that was flared up, um, as a result.

[00:42:12] And it was emotional given the situation. Um, it was not uncalled for, but the act of violence on both sides was extremely difficult to watch. Well, I mean, let's be clear. The kid did slap this man in the face. So the first time that he backhanded him, knocked him to the ground, I'm like stupid game, stupid prizes, buddy. Maybe don't, maybe don't punch the giant man. Um, but it was after that.

[00:42:35] And I think also, um, Brune being placed in an impossible position, admittedly Brune's inability to protect another child, uh, from an adult's assault was maybe too realistic for my own liking. Maybe, maybe that's what it was is maybe we all know deep down that people's morals are kind of just when they choose to use them a lot of the time. Um, or rational people have morals, but upset people generally don't. So maybe it just rang too true.

[00:43:04] But the fact that he's watching his best friend's kid get clobbered and that he's the last, he is the first one to step in, but not soon enough. I'm with you. That kind of, that right, like real unreal, whatever that bothered me maybe more than it should have for the movie. I'm like, he's still a kid. And even if his dad did that, that doesn't mean that he's guilty of anything at all. You know, I'll just clarify for the audience. I think we're talking about Theo, not Brune.

[00:43:31] Brune was the friend, the godfather who was helping with the court case. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about the father of the kid who made the original accusation. Theo. Yes. Yes. Um, all right. Um, I have a couple of things too. Um, so the, the, the scene that I found very interesting too, because again, it's kind of dancing with the gray zone is when, um, the, when, when they set up the Christmas display and the brother is with, with the abused sister. Right.

[00:44:00] And he starts crying because he think like not understanding that he was part of the actual abuse that happened. Right. But he, like, I thought that was, that was so interesting to, to give that depth because he's also just kind of like, he, he completely over his head. Right. Like he was part of that situation, but because we didn't catch on to that buddy. Um, he was essentially the catalyst for it. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. His friend, I believe. Right.

[00:44:29] But yeah. Yeah. I don't, were the, was that him and his friend? Cause there was two of them. Was it supposed to be him and his friend? I think so. Yeah. I think. And the friend had the iPad with the picture, I think. And yeah. Um, the thing that, that kind of annoyed me to here is the year time jump. Cause I feel like we spent a lot of time assassinating the character, but I think there's a lot of compelling things to kind of understand what happens when you try to rebuild that.

[00:44:58] Um, and I feel like we got robbed out of that. I think allowing some of the side characters to just get a free pass in the movie was maybe a little, a little too optimistic. Um, because a lot of them, I could see Lucas forgiving. Um, and proud of Lucas's character. He's a far better man than I am. I'd have made that situation so much worse about the third time I got punched in the butcher store. Just full, just that's not a compliment to myself. That's criticism. I'd have made that situation so much worse than it should have been.

[00:45:28] But the fact that there's a few of them that we see are worse than the others. And the fact that he treats them all the same, though morally a nice tone for the movie, realistically, probably not. I can't, I can't think of somebody who could look a guy who, for example, punched his son two or three times for defending him in the eye and shake his hand even a year after it happened. I'm not saying he'd go out and beat the guy with a baseball bat. I just don't think he'd talk to him again. I think he'd be like, he's going to be here, it is what it is, whatever. But I don't think you'd walk up and be able to acknowledge that.

[00:45:58] And whoever killed the dog, we'd be settling things in a parking lot. I think there's a lot, I think maybe, maybe the lack of rehabilitation is a little, I'm with Johannes on this one. Like, they killed his dog. They beat his son. They tried to hit him with a brick. They beat him half to death in a butcher store. How? How, how, how is he talking to any of these people? Because he doesn't know who did those things. Now, if he's figured it out, then so be it.

[00:46:25] But other than his best friend, Theo, and a couple others, how, how is he having a relationship with these people at all? Other than they're no longer assaulting him in public and he's smart enough to not burn their house down. Like, you know. It must be a European thing. Proud of them. Proud of them. Proud of them. Um, does anybody have any major, other major points they wanted to bring up? I don't think there was a single, uh, actor in this movie that did not nail it.

[00:46:55] Everybody did such a good job. Nobody took me out of this movie whatsoever. Um, maybe because the characters are so real. And so they're like, this is my, the person I'm playing. I'm not playing this, you know, character with an accent and all these, like they just had to play a person, but everybody did a great job on that. The ability to write a compelling plot without a twist in it is also something that I really enjoy. Like the fact that as we've all stated, we knew exactly what was actually happening.

[00:47:22] And at no point did we have to throw in the from left field. Oh, she actually was sexually assaulted by a different adult. Like the fact that it just was a straight laced. This is what happened. This is why it's powerful. And we're not going to cheapen it by throwing in something else was really, really powerful to watch. Like it's rare that you get a movie that just takes a thriller, especially that sets it all up and then just plays it out without feeling the need to up the stakes at all. I thought was really good. Which again, yeah, I totally agree.

[00:47:52] And I think the, the, the, the strongest part of it was every single character was realistic and they played their roles very well. So they were all compelling, um, given their base foundations. And then based on the, when you built on top of those characters, they reacted in the most realistic way to this situation that was happening in front of them. You know, we, we, it was established that, um, Theo was unstable and then throughout the film, he acted on stable.

[00:48:21] So he, there was no like point where you go, well, that is uncharacteristic of him. Um, so in a sense that they had like really well established characters. And we've established that Theo's wife is hyper reactive and throughout the film, she's hyper reactive and you know. Yeah. Uh, and I, I think that's why this had to be a non-American film because I think American

[00:48:43] films would probably be more, uh, going towards the path of, we need to have a twist in there to make it exciting. I also think we just, I, I don't know what European stats are. There are parts of America that have like incredibly uncomfortably high statistics of, you know, child abuse happening in schools specifically or with trusted people that I think you would have felt the need to appease the audience a little bit somehow, either make it feel better

[00:49:12] than it did or make the, make the act worse than it did. I don't know how, but I think when you, especially in our region, it's endemic in the Midwest, it's more so than other places. It's when it's too close to home, like when it's, if they're speaking English and it's in Salem, Missouri, which is a really small town instead of like somewhere far away, it just, you can't disassociate from it enough to take the power in like you can, if it happens somewhere else. So. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:38] I think, I think in an American film, it becomes a John Wick towards the end where the guy has to, there has to be a point of satisfaction. I would say that there's one of the strong, the strengths of this film and why it may not appeal to a, an American audience was that idea that the satisfaction of the guy getting his own on every single person who did their stuff was never felt. And I think we've talked about it for the most part.

[00:50:06] I will, I will say one last thing about European films, uh, or foreign films. Um, because I, I, I grew up watching a lot of American films and then as sometime in college I stayed to watch foreign films. Um, and I will say that a lot of foreign films touch on subjects that American films, uh, find difficult to monetize. Um, and as a result of that, you get more compelling stories.

[00:50:34] Um, we watched, um, common C, um, it's a movie about world war two and America has a lot of films about world war two, including, um, the excellent movie by Quentin Tarantino, um, which I enjoyed thoroughly, but we never, we, we get to see this movie, uh, common C where

[00:50:57] we see the Nazis in full flora and it's the most disturbing movie I've ever seen. Something that I don't think an American film has ever done. And I don't think an American film will ever do, but you know, it was a Russian film. Um, and it just blew my mind that something like that could ever be made. Um, the movie starts a little surrealistic, but by the end of the film, I'm like mind blown.

[00:51:26] Um, so yeah, just putting it out there. I don't have anything else I want to add. Cool. I think that that's a great segue because I think common C will be a great film for your podcast. Um, very nice. We'll have to check it out. You said note. Take note. Come and see. Uh, where can people find you? Oh, just anywhere you get your podcasts. If, if for some reason you find a place that we're not, let us know. Cause I think we're about everywhere.

[00:51:54] Um, we have a Facebook page, um, history recording to Hollywood. We have a YouTube channel. It's H a two H pod. Uh, we have an Instagram that's still getting going and we're in the process of before long, we'll have our own website set up. Yep. Usually you can find me specifically at a local Chinese restaurant, but the podcast in general stick to that. Um, I suggest I've just heard good feedback on it.

[00:52:21] If you don't know if our podcast is your vibe, please go to our YouTube channel. We have a lot of shorts on there that give you a tone of our podcast and some of how we handle fun information. If you like the shorts, you'll probably like the episode. So start there, you know, ease your way in, dip a toe in the water and then dive in. I'm actually to give you, I'm going to, I'm going to, um, give you a podcast to listen to, I think that, uh, based on the interactions and discussions, I am curious to know how you

[00:52:51] guys have some conversations about stuff like this. I think it's, it's going to be on my, um, added list, uh, this week. Sweet. Yeah. Don't start a Gladiator. Everybody starts at our very first episode. You don't have to start at your favorite movie. True. Just find a movie you like. Story of our lives. The interesting thing is we, I think our very first episode too, uh, I would advise people not to listen to that. We've improved significantly since then. Right. If you, if you want to hear me go full froth though, listen to our Braveheart episode.

[00:53:19] Like if you want to hear me just be, Dustin, just let me off the chain. Like, listen to Braveheart. But yeah, we've got a little bit, we try to get a little bit of a variety. Um, it's, it's a blessing and a curse being able to pick every single episode that you do. Uh, you guys have a, you guys have a, I guess an actual list to follow, which is, which is great. But also I'm sure you're like, can we skip ahead a few or I, I, the last, the last few

[00:53:49] weeks we've been going through depressing film after depressing film. And then Toy Story. Yeah. This was not a happy ending movie. We had a season two slog where we just did like B grade movie after B grade movie at about six in, um, this season I was like, we can't do that again. Like we got to give ourselves, um, cause the audience likes it, but it's hard, you know, to talk about like only mid quality movies again and again and again and again. So I was like, okay, next week we got to do something good and then we could go back to whatever we're doing.

[00:54:19] Gotta make it fun. Gotta enjoy it. That's true. That's true. All right. Roger. Where can people find us? Well, we can find us on at Movie Mistrial on Facebook and Instagram, or you can also find us at Movie Mistrial on, um, X or Twitter. Yay. But, and if you can, uh, if you do want to send us an email, you can send us an email to contact that Movie Mistrial dot com. Thank you very much, Dustin and Kyle for joining us today.

[00:54:48] And, uh, we'll be, I think we'll be really happy to join your podcast anytime. I think Johannes has been on there too. So, um, it will be cool. Yeah. Thank you for having us. This was fun. Yeah. You're always welcome. You're always welcome. Exactly. All right. Thank you very much. Ciao.