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Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Adventure · Comedy · Drama · 2016

Ricky is a defiant young city kid who finds himself on the run with his cantankerous foster uncle in the wild New Zealand bush. A national manhunt ensues, and the two are forced to put aside their differences and work together to survive.

Movie details

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

“Nature just got gangster.”

2016 Adventure · Comedy · Drama 1h 41m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

7.6 / 10

Community rating

Ricky is a defiant young city kid who finds himself on the run with his cantankerous foster uncle in the wild New Zealand bush. A national manhunt ensues, and the two are forced to put aside their differences and work together to survive.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Hunt for the Wilderpeople?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Fluke

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Alabama Moon

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After the unexpected death of his survivalist father, an eleven year old boy raised in the Alabama wilderness must learn how to make a home in the modern world.

I Am David

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A 12-year-old boy manages to flee a Communist concentration camp on his own, through sheer will and determination. All he has in his possession is a loaf of bread, a letter to deliver to someone in Denmark, and a compass to help get him there.

Nicholas Nickleby

Nicholas Nickleby

Adventure · 2002

Nicholas Nickleby, a young boy in search of a better life, struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his coldheartedly grasping uncle.

The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild

Adventure · 1972

John Thornton, is a fearless man who's after more than gold; he wants to do what's right. Thornton works for the U.S. mail and is the only person daring and smart enough to figure out how to travel the deadly 600 miles from Skagway to Dawson, Alaska in the icy winter. His incredibly dog Buck is by his side and part of how he survives.

Walkabout

Walkabout

Adventure · 1971

Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.

Boy

Boy

Drama · 2010

Boy, an 11-year-old child and devout Michael Jackson fan who lives on the east coast of New Zealand in 1984, gets a chance to know his absentee criminal father, who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years ago.

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist

Drama · 1948

When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.

A Simple Twist of Fate

A Simple Twist of Fate

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When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny's a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann's house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann's distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann's house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann's house and into McCann's life and heart.

Dances with Wolves

Dances with Wolves

Adventure · 1990

Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Taika Waititi

Written by

Taika Waititi

Sam Neill

Sam Neill

Hec

Julian Dennison

Julian Dennison

Ricky

Rima Te Wiata

Rima Te Wiata

Bella

Rachel House

Rachel House

Paula

Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne

Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne

Kahu

Oscar Kightley

Oscar Kightley

Andy

Stan Walker

Stan Walker

Ron

Court is in session

Put Hunt for the Wilderpeople on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.