Ah, the social satire. It is not an easy nut to crack. Indeed, satire of any stripe requires a delicate balance and a tough skin. There are audiences who will never accept the joke at the heart of Jonathan Swift’s “A Delicate Proposal” or Ernst Lubitch’s To Be or Not to Be, and those may be the greatest satires the English language has ever produced. And social satire? FUGGEDABOUTIT! (That was a satiric use of the slang term “forget about it,” drawn from the Italo-American lexicon, and probably, on reflection, remarkably ill-conceived. I think it also may be the first time I ever used an exclamation point in a Curnblog post. You’ll always remember your first time.)

The point is, social satire, which by definition deals with immediate hot button issues, is doomed to mixed reaction. Some will hate the message. Some will find the execution unsuccessful. Others simply won’t get it. And a few may fall in love. The social satirist knows this going in and has to accept the vitriol, the yawns, and the bewilderment that is sure to follow.

That’s why I cut a bit of slack to anyone who attempts one, even if I don’t especially like the end product. And I don’t especially like Beneath Us or The Hunt. Both are significantly flawed movies. But in my slack-cutting mood, let’s take a quick look.

Beneath Us (Max Pachman)

Social Issue: Immigration/Wealth Gap

Biggest Strength: About 25% of Lynn Collins’ performance

Biggest Weakness: The other 75% of Lynn Collins’ performance

OK – first off, this isn’t all Lynn Collins’ fault. In fact, if you like the movie, chances are you love Lynn Collins in it and are having wet dreams over seeing her play opposite Nicholas Cage in a remake of The Out of Towners. More on her in a minute.

Beneath Us begins with an intriguing, if somewhat cliched, set-up. A young man, Memo, (Josue Aguirre) is struggling to free himself from a locked container. Around him are other men, some dead, some seemingly injured. We might assume this is the opening of either a drug cartel or smuggling story. When we see Memo show up at the small group home of his brother Alejandro (Rigo Sanchez), we realize it is the latter. Memo has crossed the border illegally and now will have to navigate various perils with the help of his brother. We continue to watch them attempt to earn money as day laborers. At the end of act 1, they are hired, along with two other acquaintances, to do some construction work at the isolated home of a wealthy young couple.

Enough plot summary. Almost all of the remainder of the movie takes place on that estate, and it spins into a wildly implausible tale of horror and suspense as Memo and Alejandro attempt to escape a terrible situation. For most of the first act, Pachman and his co-writer Mark Mavrothalasitis attempt to construct a realistic relationship between Memo and Alejandro. Memo is extremely sullen and non-communicative, and we will come to understand that he harbors a lot of bitterness because Alejandro left the family for greener pastures, seemingly never looking back. For his part, Alejandro argues that he has been working every day to bring his family north, enduring constant indignities and plowing forward for their benefit. Again, this is not new territory, but it is the stuff of strong drama.

Then they meet Collins, as a seemingly innocent young woman named Liz who needs some construction help. Eventually, they will also meet Ben (James Tupper), her handsome blond husband. For a few minutes, there is genuine tension as we wonder about who to root for. There is something off about Liz, but there is also something rather odious about Hector (Roberto Sanchez), the most aggressive of the four day laborers, who clearly has some impure intentions toward the young woman. This is the part of the movie where Collins is at her best. She’s normal, with just a tinge of crazy. Then, a few minutes later, she slams the pedal down and rams her character straight through all roadblocks into the realm of pyscho-maniac.  This largely unhinges the movie, though it does provide plenty of visceral thrills.

Lynn Collins in Beneath Us

SPOILER ALERT:We will come to learn that Liz and Ben have been involved in some rather unsavory methods for flipping houses at maximum profit by using helpless undocumented workers. This is an intriguing back story, and it might have made for an interesting drama. Along the lines of the brilliant Pacific Heights, in which a demented genius takes advantage of California’s renter protections to drive his landlord over the edge. But whereas Pacific Heights maintains its slow steady build to its unavoidable climax, Beneath Us seems to have little interest in such a build. Whereas Michael Keaton’s Carter Hayes in Pacific Heights is an entirely believable villain, Liz is so over-the-top that there’s no way to genuinely buy into her ability to pull off such an elaborate plan.

And the emphasis on Liz’s (and Ben’s) craziness forces the movie away from its initial set-up. The broad problems confronting immigrants and the specific problems between Memo and Alejandro are subsumed by the immediate thriller/horror elements kicked off by the rich white couple. The movie pays some brief, unsatisfying lip service to the issues at its core. Memo, in particular, who has a very intriguing set up, is virtually forgotten as the plot unfolds. I don’t mean forgotten in terms of action. He remains active and on screen. But what we know about him – and what we still wish to see revealed – simply evaporates.

Josue Aguirre as Memo in Beneath Us

That is in part because there are really two movies going on here. And that’s where a comparison to what I assume was one of Pachman’s biggest inspirations is instructive. Beneath Us might still have come into existence without Jordan Peele’s Get Out, but I suspect its journey would have been quite different. The two movies are very similar in their broadest strokes. Both suck unsuspecting heroes of color into a world of horrors constructed by wealthy white people for their own economic gain or personal fulfillment. The minorities are seen as property. But Get Out reveals its horrors in much more subtle manner, and when it does, its villains really do not change all that much. There is a subdued quality to Catherine Keener’s Missy Armitage which is far more insidious than Collins’ Liz. It is scarier because it is much more believable. That applies to all the villains in Get Out. Balancing Missy, Daniel Kaluuya’s Chris is a much more savvy, and at times even funny, hero. In fact, Chris’ sense of knowing humor is central to why Get Out works so much better than Beneath Us. Memo and Alejandro have none of it, and the result is that they are acting in one movie, while Liz and Ben appear to be in a completely different movie. This is the Gordian knot of satire. How do you blend serious social commentary with absurdist humor? Peele knows the answer. Pachman does not. Peele moves both of his character types toward the center, so that Keener is more grounded, despite her madness, and Kaluuya is more aware of the absurdity surrounding him. When the movie shifts gears into that more absurdist horror, both extremes remain comfortable and on the same page. But in Beneath Us, Memo and Alejandro never really leave the gritty reality of their set up, while Liz and Ben continue to spin farther and farther out of that orbit. They simply stop being in the same movie after a while so that the climax is oddly muted.

This is not to say that there are no good elements in Beneath Us. The premise is very intriguing and it does play out in an acceptable manner. Though it can never sustain its peak levels of either suspense or of social commentary, at least it does have some peaks. And at least I believe it is making an honest effort at discourse.

And that brings us to…

The Hunt (Craig Zobel)

Social Issue: Societal Polarization

Biggest Strength: Humor

Biggest Weakness: Shallower than the zygote pool

Zobel did not have a particularly novel premise for The Hunt. Richard Connell’s story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” originally published in 1924, has been adapted for the screen at least a dozen times. The idea of humans hunting other humans is pretty flexible. What he did have, however, was a good twist. Instead of the gun-loving rightwing fascists doing the hunting, and do-gooder liberals serving as prey, he switched it around. This allowed for the possibility of intriguing genre and norm-bending examinations of the rationales and fears which drive the different groups. It also might have done some positive work in finding humanity in a group that mainstream Hollywood often mocks.

Alas, Zobel had no interest in any of that. He drew the broadest caricatures possible for virtually every character, going for crude farcical humor over any semblance of social commentary. And I must admit, I did laugh – out loud and more than once. There is funny material throughout the story. It’s just that satire usually aims higher than that.

Unlike Beneath Us, there is no doubt that all the characters in The Hunt are in the same movie. They mostly speak in clichéd dog whistles so that the liberal elite can self-flagellate for not being up-to-date on whether “black” is an acceptable adjective, while the rednecks can have orgasms over the sight of semi-automatic weaponry. But with about twenty characters stumbling through the Croatian countryside, it is hard for Zobel to distinguish any of them in meaningful ways. Most of them have coded names, which doesn’t really matter, because most of them aren’t around long enough to make any kind of impression as anything beyond plot fodder. (I’m looking at you, Emma Roberts – aka Yoga Pants. I’m assuming Ira Barinholtz – aka Staten Island – is just on hand to balance out his karma after making The Oath last year.)

Beyond the lack of character depth which dooms the whole movie, there are several other significant faults in its construction. The plot takes a decidedly ineffective turn in the middle when several characters escape the hunting grounds and encounter the outside world – a world populated entirely by fleeing immigrants and the Croatian military. This is just wrong-headed in so many ways. The first fundamental rule of the “haunted house” genre (and this, in a way, is a version of that) is that your hero cannot leave the house. Once she does the movie is over. John McClane doesn’t escape the Nakatomi Building in Die Hard only to go back in. And if you ever do have your hero go back in – it’s immediate, and it’s in order to save others. (see Jack Traven in Speed) They certainly don’t go wandering the countryside engaging with an entirely different subplot before returning to the hunt. But that’s exactly what Crystal (Betty Gilpin) does in The Hunt. It’s a narrative misstep that unmoors the middle of the movie.

I’ll forgive the use of a rather long flashback just before the end of Act 2. Other movies have employed this kind of device, with mixed results. Tarantino did it in Reservoir Dogs. Peter Weir did it in The Truman Show. Here, the flashback is entirely expository, which isn’t exactly what you want at this point in your movie, but so be it. At least it is the first time we get to see Hilary Swank’s face.  And it seems silly to complain about implausibility in a movie of this type, but the fact that this mysterious group of predators has the power to build its own high tech sets and foresee extreme possibilities which require members to impersonate refugees and government officials outside their area of control, and yet make some of the most fundamentally stupid blunders imaginable, does begin to wear on an audience. If the audience bothers to think about things like that. The bottom line is that this just doesn’t appear to be a very well thought-out story.

But I can forgive all that, because it did make me laugh.

But I can’t forgive two other major flaws. This is a social satire which makes absolutely no social commentary. Beyond an occasional platitude or cliché, there is no meaningful debate about what separates these two sides. This is clearly intentional, as there are repeated hints throughout the movie that there might eventually be such a discussion. The predators talk several times about not wanting to kill the prey too fast because they want them to understand why they are being hunted. Then they throw a hand grenade at them to blow them up before any such information can be exchanged. Our hero, Crystal, is asked several times if she cares about why this is happening, and each time, she quickly declines to express the slightest curiosity. The climax does attempt to address the issue, though that debate is so flimsy you forget it before the next karate kick is delivered. So not only does this offer paper thin characters, it also fails to offer an actual theme. All it has is action and jokes.

And perhaps that would have been enough. Not enough for a good movie, but enough for a marginally entertaining one. Only after all this, the filmmakers cop out on the ending. I will try not to give away the entire resolution, but suffice to say that some question is raised over the true identity of one of the major players in the story. This question does indeed appear to be resolved, though I would argue the resolution actually isn’t as clear as it seems. This in and of itself is either a cop out, or else simply sloppy storytelling. And it really doesn’t matter much, because however you choose to answer that identity question, it remains unsatisfying, albeit for different reasons. I won’t say more at this point – we can talk about it later if you would like to argue the point.

So we are left with two very flawed social satires which should suggest to you how very difficult effective social satire can be. If I had to choose, I’d say Beneath Us is the more successful of the two.  Then again, what do I know? Earlier, I called Pacific Heights brilliant. The Hunt has a higher Rotten Tomatoes score. Stupid Rotten Tomatoes critics. I’m thinking of kidnapping a few, flying them off to an isolated estate in Croatia, and…