source: Hunter Gatherer

A very beautiful film about love, friendship, solidarity, deception, confusion and unfocused lives in the latter days. Highly recommended. First feature by an art director from the mountains of Virginia, who landed in Los Angeles. Original, magical, hard, sad and funny comedy-drama, thanks to the freedom granted by independent cinema.

Like myself especially but not exclusively. Having thoroughly been enthralled years ago by his breakthrough role in The Wire and more recent polar opposite depiction of a Mayoral Judge confidante, in Amazon Prime series, I marvel again at his range as an actor. I enjoyed it enough to award it 8 stars plus two snaps up! The Amazon Prime series is entitled, Hand of God

Josh Locy is the director of the off-beat Hunter Gatherer, which features an uneasy mix of farce and tragedy in a lower middle class African-American community in Los Angeles. The protagonist is Ashley (well played by Andre Royo, best known for his work on The Wire). When we first meet Ashley, he's just done a three year stint in prison and moves back home with his mother who soon tires of his presence. The tone for most of the film (except for the ending) is decidedly farcical. The Hunter Gatherer of the title is our protagonist who can best be described as a hustler. He's obsessed with a former girlfriend, Linda, with whom he wants to get back together with and then concocts a ludicrous scheme involving the sale of old refrigerators. When he learns that the county requires $100 to dispose of the refrigerators as "hazardous material", he goes around the neighborhood offering to take the aforementioned junk off people's hands for a reduced price. He then conscripts Jeremy, a young man he meets out on the street, to transport the refrigerators using his truck, to a dump outside the city. When the truck breaks down, Ashley ends up first burying the refrigerators in his mother's backyard. He then attempts to hook up with Jeremy's aunt, a prostitute who soon dumps him for a manager at a motel. Somehow Ashley finds a way to convince the motel manager to let him stay at the motel, where he uses an adjoining room to stash more refrigerators. At first all the quirky characters are kind of endearing but the refrigerator plot goes on for much too long. There's also a sub-plot involving Ashley taking continuing education classes to improve his penmanship. The narrative begins to veer away from the comedy when we learn that Jeremy has been hustling also—earning extra dollars as the subject of a medical clinic's experiments (the nature of those experiments is never explained in detail). Jeremy is also trying to have an old ventilator repaired to try and help his grandfather breathe better—Jeremy in fact lives with his grandfather (of all places) in a nursing home. As noted above, the narrative is basically a one-note idea that far extends its welcome. There is an attempt to inject pathos to the story when Jeremy saves Ashley from committing suicide by blowing himself up with dynamite—and Ashley in turn is unable to save Jeremy, who ends up drowning in a swimming pool. Somehow in all this there's a message about the power of friendship but most of it relies on extracting humor from the main character's lack of insight. We get it early on and ultimately the Hunger Gatherer runs out of gas.

If you like good movies, great acting this is the movie for you.

I cant understand how this film can get 6/10? Movie has simple plot about simple life simple people.Characters didn't excite any emotions, well at least movie take only 1:30 hours of my time. Almost all actions of film happen in the same places.Just wanna tell that you can find more good movies.

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.

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.

Trailer—Hunter Gatherer

Hunter Gatherer