AFI FEST: The Wire’s Andre Royo is Great in HUNTER GATHERER

One of the great joys of following an actor or actress through multiple projects is the baggage that accrues after enough great performances. Once they’ve left that stamp on the viewer’s emotions, it can be used to bolster a performance or even surprise us; think of any action star who repeats a catchphrase among multiple projects, or Tom Cruise’s wholly against-type performance in Magnolia. Hunter Gatherer’s star, Andre Royo, is best known for his terrific work as heroin addict Bubbles on HBO’s The Wire, and the film smartly uses that built-in likability to great effect on screen.

Royo stars as Ashley Douglas, a recent prison parolee who returns home to find that his life has moved on without him. His ex-girlfriend Linda (Ashley Wilkerson) has taken up with a new man, his mother has no patience for his shenanigans, and his friends have abandoned him. When Ashley meets Jeremy (George Sample III), a young man with similarly destitute prospects, he worms his way into the boy’s life. Before long, he’s roped Jeremy into a plan to make money disposing of old refrigerators, hoping to win Linda back through his unlikely success.

As a modestly scaled character piece, Hunter Gatherer rests firmly on its leading man’s shoulders, and Royo does truly impressive work. His work on The Wire required a specific flavor of charismatic street cred that is excellently deployed here, and even as Ashley relishes his freedom, his growing frustration that his life will never be the same is balanced by Royo’s unflappable likability. Writer/director Joshua Locy, making his feature debut, is unafraid to let Ashley commit some profoundly off-putting acts, but Royo’s work is so strong and deeply human that the dimensionality of the character is an asset instead of the liability it would be in less skilled hands.

While this is far from a punishing drama about economic struggle, Hunter Gatherer is always acutely aware of the grim prospects its characters face. Jeremy lives hand-to-mouth, volunteering as a medical guinea pig so he can care for his ailing grandfather, and unknown actor George Sample III carries himself with heartwarming, tangible decency. Meanwhile, the most promising job prospect Ashley can rustle up is a harebrained refrigerator disposal scheme, which is a testament to the character’s resourcefulness more than his intelligence. While the film never feels like it’s reveling in the characters’ misfortunes, it takes an honest, authentic approach and Locy’s direction is subtle and measured.

If there’s a nit to be picked with Hunter Gatherer, it’s with the film’s final stretch. As Locy’s script unleashes a crescendo of misfortune upon its characters, the proceedings take a sharp left turn into abstract surrealism. It’s a bold gambit that leaves things on an almost defiantly inconclusive note, but the most literal interpretation of the ending is one of staggering darkness that strikes an irreconcilable tonal contrast to the rest of the film. No matter what viewers take away from the last minutes of Hunter Gatherer, it’s almost impressive how stubbornly the film resists any meaningful conclusion.

Overall, Hunter Gatherer is a mild-mannered, quiet character study, and those qualities don’t go a long way towards making it stand out in a crowded time of year at the movies. Joshua Locy’s script and direction both show lots of promise, but the true appeal of the film is in the tremendous work from Andre Royo and George Sample III, and the strength of this unlikely, resourceful duo’s performances are enough to make Hunter Gatherer worthy of recommendation.

Originally published at cinapse.co on November 15, 2016.