Dean Arnold
Early on, I forgot I was watching a movie, which is perhaps the most important litmus test for any film.This work provides a delightful portrait of two lower middle class males, struggling to get by. They hustle in various strange ways, but they aren't criminals. The central character is simply looking for a little dignity. It's difficult not to root for someone who cannot recite his ABC's in order and is going back to school to learn to write. His petty deceptions and other flaws are overlooked due to his Don Quixotic love for old flame Linda, and his determination to make an honest living, however strange.The lead performance by Andre Royo (The Wire is spectacular. His character is impossible not to like. The casting director gets real kudos in this movie. Every performer is superb. The writer helps out in this by adding complexity to each character. No one is even near perfect. There also is no cartoonish villain. The screenwriter drives the story along using the foibles contained in the average human being. These characters are common to all of us. They are a lot like us.One other refreshing thing to note: this is a film with all black people that is not about black people--there's not even a reference. It's about people.I gave the movie 8 out of 10. It's biggest weakness is a bit of deus ex machina at the end. Otherwise, it took me into another world, different from my own, but at the same time very similar. Worth the time and money.
jtncsmistad
There are so many reasons to like the recently debuted and utterly original drama "Hunter Gatherer". At least there are for me. Candidly, I went into this movie with modest expectations at best. I emerged from the experience knocked completely on my can.Number one, the film's star, Andre Royo. The veteran actor absolutely inhabits his character of Ashley, a total sad sack and selfish dunderhead who isn't fooling anybody with his foolish scams and attempts to be somebody he is not, which is one of life's hopeless losers. Still, despite there not being much to root for with Ashley, Royo's performance is so compelling and charged with naive optimism that we practically can't help but root for him to make something out of his nothing existence, an unforgiving reality created entirely of his own vices and devices.Secondly, the barely known George Sample III. This young man is a genuine revelation as Ashley's happenstance sidekick, Jeremy (or as he asks to be called with no reservation that it may be considered insulting, "Germs"). Sample brings us a lonely kid who willingly serves as a paid "lab rat", volunteering for mysterious medical science clinical trials which require that he wear a battery of magnets adhered to his chest and abdomen. He willingly does this to scratch out a living in the not so glam locale of L.A. in which he survives. But moreover, his main motivation lies in helping to fund the care, and ultimately the revitalization, of his ailing grandfather, who is slowly wasting away in a convalescent home. Jeremy is exceptionally compassionate, industrious, determined and ambitious. We know without question why we pull so hard for him to make it.The female cast members are uniformly impressive in "Hunter Gatherer", but I submit that the remarkable work of Kellee Stewart as Nat stands out as perhaps the best among this gifted group. Nat is a woman who strolls the streets for a living, but clearly longs to find a nice guy to love and be cared for by so that she may walk away from turning tricks for good. Stewart is yet another natural talent to appreciate here, and she makes you ache almost as much as Nat does for better things.Writer/Director Joshua Locy earns high praise as the uncommonly creative mind behind this indy stunner. Locy starts out as if he is going to take us on a largely quirky, kooky kind of cutesy little romp through an offbeat rom-com type of tale. But he isn't. For gradually, and almost without us even recognizing it is happening, his unusual story becomes one of crippling disappointment and desperation. Hardly the stuff of light and breezy fare. And a testament to the extraordinary vision of an artist whose voice deserves to, and SHOULD be, heard from often in the years to come.Finally special recognition must be invested in the remarkable music which serves as consistent and powerful punctuation to the scenes and events in "Hunter Gatherer". Keegan DeWitt has composed a score that merges perfectly with the gradually changing tone inherent in this narrative. At first frisky and fun, like a cross between Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, the sound eventually becomes, along with the film's feel, more weighty, even grave, reminiscent of the most ominous instrumentation of Pink Floyd. Such diversity and depth is not easy to pull off by any musician. That DeWitt does so, and so expertly, is, again, wholly indicative of a true expert at his craft.It may be a challenge to extract a theme from "Hunter Gatherer". It is so likely unlike anything else you've ever seen. Upon reflection the day after watching it now, I will bring this observation to the table. Ashley, while consumed with pursuing, with hunting, someone who didn't care about him in the slightest, never paused to realize that all the while there was a person who, while he did almost nothing to deserve it, had come, had gathered the capacity, to care about him. Significantly.And so, in the end, it is left then for Ashley, and he alone, to try desperately to pick up the pieces of a viciously shattered soul.
Erik Parks
Most of the time a film has to have a really strong story to pull an audience in. And then there are other films where the characters are so well written, one couldn't care less about the story. Such is the case with director Josh Locy's clever debut.The plot is simple...a perennial loser recently released from prison makes a new friend, hustles to earn money, and works to win back the girl of his dreams.The likability of the characters is undeniable. Royo and Sample put in stellar performances as the quirky leads. What starts as a man-on-a-mission type film becomes something so much more powerful. And an idea as simple as the beauty of friendship is truly what shines through in this lovely little indie gem.If you like character-driven films about people on the margins, please check this one out. It is well worth your time.
