Over the course of two films (“The Foot Fist Way,” “Observe and Report”) and two successful HBO series (“Eastbound & Down,” “Vice Principals”), filmmaker Jody Hill has carved out a career as a provocateur centered on toxic narcissists, unchecked male ego and huge, mean-spirited jackasses. His work tends to draw admiration and ire in equal measure, as the lead characters of his stories are always aggressively unlikeable, pushing the boundary of just how much an audience can empathize with contemptible blowhards. Hill’s M.O. is to find humor in jerks and their self-centered, cruel behavior. So, it comes as a major shock that he largely abandons his inclinations towards the malicious and self-centered in his latest film – the Netflix father and son bonding movie, “The Legacy Of A Whitetail Deer Hunter.”
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Buck Ferguson (Josh Brolin), the lead in the comedy, may have a minor streak of narcissism in him, especially concerning the interests that he assumes his son will also love like hunting (spoiler: he does not). He’s Fred Rogers compared to Hill’s other subjects. He’s the host of the moderately successful hunting program “Buck Fever,” and on his latest episode, he takes his twelve-year-old son Jaden (Montana Jordan) on his first hunting trip as a kind of misguided salve to patch their distancing relationship and reassert his manhood. His longtime cameraman Don (Danny McBride) is there to capture every moment, even if Buck has to fudge some of the moments to create the perfect father-son bonding episode.
‘Legacy’ is more of a straightforward narrative than the looser character study of Hill’s previous features, but with that comes a listless narrative thrust. Buck and Jaden’s mother (Carrie Coon) have recently gone through a divorce, and Buck has issues with Jaden’s admiration of his mom’s boyfriend (Scoot McNairy), so the hunting trip almost acts as Buck’s overcompensation.
But the boy, not all that interested in the expeditions, brings his phone and his guitar with him everywhere, much to his father’s disapproval (which, as someone who went on hunting trips to Eastern Oregon when they were a teenager, and took their Walkman and acoustic guitar with them on every trip, this rang painfully true). Meanwhile, Don the cameraman is looking to retire from the show to spend more time with his girlfriend.
Unfortunately, all these little conflicts feel much more fabricated than organic, and this feeling clouds the film’s aim early, and often. Without his signature mean-spirited brand of comedy, Hill is left naked, and while it’s admirable that the filmmaker attempts to try something new, it’s questionable if he has the skill set to pull off the sentimentality he aspires for here. Maybe in time, it could come, but given this movie was shot in 2015 and took three years to find release, while Hill moved back to “Vice Principals” in the interim, he may just have returned to his comfort zone.
The moments that do overpower the obvious narrative beats of ‘Legacy’ come down to the casting. It’s a shame that actors as good as Coon and McNairy are stuck in brief, thankless roles, but Brolin is outstanding here. Both Brolin and Hill know the Buck character inside and out. For this character, hunting is an addiction, an escape. It’s a hobby, but an overly obsessive one, to the point where he doesn’t quite know how to function outside of the wilderness. Most of these are traits are frustratingly mentioned aloud in dialogue by other characters, but it’s wholly unnecessary because Brolin carries all of these characteristics in his internalized, expressive performance. Brolin’s a terrific performer of deadpan comedy (as “Inherent Vice” proved), but also such a strong dramatic presence that he’s able to overcome the burden of the movie’s routine storytelling.
McBride— who once again co-wrote with Hill— is also strong and thankfully playing against type. He’s Hill’s muse of obnoxiousness and perennially the unabashed asshole in his films. So it’s refreshing, surprising even, to see him not only play the Hank Kingsley to Brolin’s Larry Sanders but to act as the film’s moral center. Everything builds up to a climax that is overwrought and can be heard clumsily trampling through the woods from miles away, but McBride grounds it in a way that makes it feel at least less tedious. With a lesser performer, the role for Jaden could have been cartoonish. But the young actor Montana Jordan is good at playing the over-the-top “new generation” when he needs and also juxtaposes Brolin very well. The two make a convincing father and son duo.
What the film does exceptionally well, and it’s too bad there isn’t more of it, are the snippets of the “Buck Fever” hunting show. Hill’s hilarious mimicry of this type of hunting show— shot on low-grade prosumer cameras, underscored by stock music with ridiculous (and hilarious) transitions like star wipes— is spot-on. Every time the film cuts to one of these segments, it generates strong laughs. The other solid touch of ‘Legacy’ is its inspired montages. No, none of them end up with the characters shooting up heroin like Seth Rogen and Michael Peña in “Observe and Report,” but one of them is shooting soda cans. Told visually, it’s unfortunate that outside of these scenes, ‘Legacy’ feels as if it doesn’t have faith in its audience to understand, and explains these emotions anyway.
Seemingly trying to stretch his wings outside the one-note repellant prick he’s mastered, “The Legacy Of A Whitetail Dear Hunter” feels like a left turn passion project for Hill in trying to do something new. Yes, it’s a comedy, but it’s much more earnest, and its attempts at emotional involvement suggest a much more mature filmmaker somewhere deep down in there. But, if there’s such a thing as too sincere, ‘Legacy’ would fall into that category. Hill assembles a strong cast, and they are immensely watchable throughout the film, but it’s short on big laughs, never as compelling as it should be and lacking dramatic consistency. To the film’s credit, it’s also short on running time (Hill has never made a film over 90 minutes. He knows how to get in and get out). If nothing else, between this, “Sicario: Day of the Saldado,” “Deadpool 2,” and “Avengers: Infinity War,” summer 2018 should be deemed, “The Summer of Brolin.” As for this slight film? It goes on the hunt for something of sustenance but comes home mostly empty-handed, and a good Josh Brolin performance is at least some kind of consolation prize. [C]
