The
Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter ** / *****
Directed
by: Jody
Hill.
Written
by: John
Carcieri and Jody Hill and Danny McBride.
Starring:
Josh
Brolin (Buck Ferguson), Danny McBride (Don), Montana Jordan (Jaden), Carrie
Coon (Mrs. Ferguson), Scoot McNairy (Greg).
Buck Ferguson is a great
character name – and a great character – in Jody Hill’s The Legacy of a
Whitetail Deer Hunt. Buck is the star of a series of hunting videos, where he
and his ever loyal camera Don (Danny McBride) go into the woods around the
world to kill whitetail deer. The best sequence in the film may just be the
first one – a montage of these videos, where we watch Buck kill a whole bunch
of deer, some in very, bloody ways with his gun – smiling the whole time. This
sequence, and Josh Brolin’s on target performance as Buck, immediately
establishes Buck as the image of the ideal “red blooded American man” – one of
those guys from the “real America”.
Immediately after than sequence
though, we see the truth behind that over confidence Buck has on those videos.
In real life, he is a divorced, middle aged man who is watching as his ex-wife
(Carrie Coon) is about to marry his polar opposite, Greg (Scoot McNairy) and
who struggles with connecting his son, Jaden (Montana Jordan) – who is 12, and
who Buck doesn’t seem to know all that much about. He doesn’t know he has a
girlfriend, he doesn’t know he plays the guitar – he doesn’t know a lot. He is
taking Jaden along on this hunting trip, to be filmed by Don for the newest
video of course, in an effort to try and bond with his son. But Buck makes the
classic parenting mistake of assuming his kid will like what he likes – instead
of trying to figure out what his kid wants.
All of this could have, and
probably should have, made for a great movie. And yet, once Hill and company
establish their premise, they don’t really have anywhere to go with it. Hill,
whose last film was the wonderful Observe and Report (2009) – in which Seth
Rogen play a mall security guard with no self-awareness – a kind of Rupert
Pupkin with a fake badge has spent most of the last decade in TV – with shows
like Eastbound and Down and Vice Principals (both unseen by me – sue me, I only
recently got HBO). The film does have an intriguing premise and a wonderful
performance by Brolin. But there’s little else here.
What follows though is a series
of incidents in which we see through Buck’s bluster, we see him misunderstand
his kid, we see his kid do one stupid thing after another, we see Buck abuse Don,
and we see Don take it. Rather, rinse, repeat. You keep waiting for the film to
find a second gear – but it never really arrives. The movie even tries to tack
on a happy end of sorts – one where Buck seems to have some sort of
breakthrough – and that just feels false. Most of the time, Hill’s characters
don’t even realize that they have a lesson to learn, let alone actually learn
one. It feels false here that they man we meet at the beginning of the film
would become the person he is at the end. And in between, the film seems to be
on autopilot. This is an example of a lot of talent wasted.
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