“My Son Hunter” (2022)
Blistering warts and all parody with far too much truth for the Establishment to bear
First and foremost, may I extend a hearty “Bravo!” of congratulations toward director Robert Davi in only his third outing in the director’s chair after a long acting career, writers Brian Godawa and Phelim McAleer, who alongside Ann McElhinney also co-produced this venture and a venture in the known truth that no-one dare mention. The stellar acting credit falls to Laurence Fox as the titular Hunter, but before we delve into his and the other cast member performances that surround his spiralling out of control central performance, whilst this film isn’t perfect or frankly anywhere near it, it does shine a pertinent light on the very “conspiracy” no-one dares utter despite the out in the open links that become chains and the chains that weigh heavily on the atrocious human beings involved. For there is a conspiracy (two or more people plotting to do something illegal or harmful) and there’s a huge conspiracy of silence that even the most blinkered among us must recognise now. That *they* don’t is disheartening in the extreme and in keeping with this years 2000 Mules documentary on vote rigging, harvesting and the voter fraud that soaked through the 2020 USA Presidential election. Where 2000 Mules was equally riddled with facts and video evidence, it was also “dry”, lecturing and plodding and without any trailer beforehand I expected something similar here akin to a documentary on the tangled and politically corrupt life of the Biden family.
How wrong I was.
Now, before we venture any further, yes I am a pesky “conspiracy theorist”, it’s a badge of honour I’ve carried now for nearly three decades and I couldn’t be further away from the right winged politics that proliferate the film’s star name Laurence Fox’s oft decried Twitter page. I am as far left as could possibly be but all sentient human beings should now be fully aware that Right/Left politics are an illusory concept for the tried and tested “Divide and Conquer” strategy that is so transparent yet, as with so much, people steadfastly refuse to believe their own lying eyes and instead fall back on their “team” and its political position. Red rosette. Blue rosette. The conservative Republicans. The democratic Labour. What a vaudevillian sham it all is and, more importantly, it isn’t all about the money. Power, prestige, control and dominance are instilled by a much higher power than these devils who profess their love of God, Jesus and religion. The dark hole runs much deeper than money or corruption or human power or their preference of religious idol, but sadly the majority amongst us can’t even believe these people are anything but straight down the line upstanding humans like us, let alone what these entities really are.
So I’m a “let’s watch the sunset on the beach and why don’t you just leave everyone alone to find their own path and their own love in their life” kind of socialist democrat, and so I should rightly be appalled at this film and the attack upon my political people. But they’re not my people and nor are they, regardless of the colour of the rosette on their lapels, your people either.
The film itself, for it is a drama/comedy film, with splashes of documentary real life stock film footage thrown in for good measure, is a dark satire that’s right on the bloody nose, near the knuckle, fourth wall breaking, convention breaking madness, and frankly I can’t believe the producers and director got away with making it at all, so all power to them. It’s all here, the hair sniffing shenanigans of the “Commander in Chief” as well as his whispering tone rising to furious uncontrolled anger. His son, a reckless and out of control pampered prince among thieves. Their family motto and “My word as a Biden” interspersed with “The Big Guy” forever exclaiming “C’mon man!” and, like so many breaks in the fourth wall between the film and its audience, “Like father, like son”. It’s all here, the history to the Biden’s involvement in a country called “Ukraine” (you might have heard about this country recently on your local “News”) and how horrifically convenient it’s been that a war has ravaged the already decimated country. All Russian aggression and “Russian disinformation” as I’m sure the news channels have told you, all naturally forgetting the horrific war already being waged in that country since 2014 and since the country Biden represents enforced its own preferred “colour revolution”.
It staggers me how short our collective memories are: Years of political chicanery, shenanigans, profiteering, societal reframing and lest we forget, the moral outrage at such an openly Nazi political and military ideology and then, well, a war, and everyone conveniently forgets even the most recent of political history and it’s the aggression and disinformation from those pesky Russian “Reds” again.
The film is soaked through with such dramatic telling's of recent history interspersed with real life stock footage of the time and awkwardly jarring breaks in the fourth wall as the actors talk directly, and pointedly, to the audience. Many work, some don’t, but the theme I kept returning to constantly was juxtaposition, and the juxtaposing of real life and the “real life” painted by a bought, paid for, and fully signed up mainstream media. Of actual provable facts and those damn “fact checkers” who annoy me as much as the Orwellian use of “disinformation”.
Obvious truths versus blatant lies.
The juxtapositions are constantly reinforced: of Joe Biden’s actions versus the tweets (tweets!) of his predecessor Donald Trump, the filth and depravity of a struggling city versus the high lifestyle and vibrancy of a sex club, or the hilariously used mock up of a CNN Reporter stating unequivocally (with real life stock footage banner on the actual live footage if I’m not mistaken) that the protests going on behind him are “largely peaceful protests” as the city and neighbourhood behind him is literally burning and exploding fiercely. But never are the juxtapositions of this film more starkly apparent than with the two stars who’s constant conversations provide an exposition heavy backstory via “Hunter Biden” (Laurence Fox) and “Grace Anderson” (Emma Gojkovic). Whereas Fox infuses the Biden character with shameless reckless debauchery and a devil may care attitude, Grace (otherwise known as “Kitty”) is straight, methodical, empathetic and the rational to Hunter’s schizophrenic. The juxtapositions between the two characters are stark and never more aptly demonstrated than Hunter’s depressive exclamation that he’s “all Dad has left of Mummy” whilst Kitty stares straight down the barrel of the camera before stating matter-of-factly “I’m only doing this to pay off my college debts”.
Juxtapositions. Juxtapositions.
On they continue through Hunter’s reliance on the booze and heavy drugs that are in plentiful supply until they’re not, before he replenishes them via the tent cities that sadly loiter nearby to his palatial home or opulent hotel. The man-child who, like all Royal families, has it all, but he’s a highest of rollers about to hit the rockiest of bottoms. And survive intact and largely unscathed. Both Fox’s and Gojkovic’s central performances are very well played.
“This is not a true story…….except for all the facts” and as the opening scroll of the film confirms, there’s a lot of “facts” on display here. It’s just a shame that a vast, vast majority of people are blinded to the truth by their lying eyes or a ridiculous notion of allegiance to a political party or orthodoxy that utterly despises them.
“How does it feel to find out we’re the Evil Empire?”
Bill Hicks (1961–1994).
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 100 blog articles within my archives from which to choose from:
