The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter (2018)

Movie Info

“Hunting Sucks?” yes…Jaden. Especially when we are stuck watching it in this movie.

Buck Ferguson (Josh Brolin) is the star of Buck Fever…a TV series about his love of hunting whitetail deer all over the world.  Now, Buck is intent on passing on the love of hunting to his son Jaden (Montana Jordan) while his cameraman Don (Danny McBride) captures the magic all on camera.  Buck’s dreams could come true when he spots a legacy deer that would be ideal for Jaden to bag on his first hunt…but Jaden has other plans.

Written and directed by Jody Hill (with additional writing by John Carcieri and Danny McBride), The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter is a comedy with a few dramatic aspects.  The movie premiered at South by Southwest and was bought by Netflix which released it on July 6, 2018.  It received largely average or negative reviews.

Netflix is a real potpourri…you never know what you will get.  When I saw advertisements for The Legacy of the Whitetail Deer Hunter, I had some hope with the cast and people behind it…unfortunately, that hope was quickly dashed.

Oh if this could be the whole movie…

The movie has a great setup that seems to fall flat.  The opening of the film is largely Buck’s TV series Buck Fever which is cheesy, syndicated cheap TV.  It is glorious.  The film then devolves into a horribly unbalanced comedy that can’t quite decide its tone or sense of humor.  It borderlines raunchy without quite crossing over nor is it schmaltzy which it sometimes feels like.  The characters are completely lacking of interest due to the fact they bounce back and forth in their portrayals within the film…it is a mess.

Josh Brolin is an interesting choice for the lead.  He’s still playing his gruff Josh Brolin character that he’s adapted over the years, but they try to mix humor with it.  It might have worked if it had been better written because he is a strong actor.  Danny McBride’s browbeaten photog just doesn’t have enough direction and the pervy parts of the story involving him telling sex stories to Buck’s son also don’t match the tone enough.  I almost wanted Montana Jordan to be the complete opposite of Josh Brolin (which probably would be unrealistic), but the story needed better conflict between the two other than “Jaden was held back” arguments…he just comes off as the young Joe Dirt most of the time.

Showing an elementary school kid your girlfriend getting banged by a bunch of guys. Fun bonding…or Jerry Sandusky?

As mentioned, the Buck Fever part of the movie is fantastic and I really wish that it had been maintained throughout the whole movie.  Instead, the stylized look is lost and it becomes an average looking film with a below average plot…something a little tweaking visually could have raised.

The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter is a disappointment.  It is short (a plus), but you also feel that it is one of those movies where you really lost the time it took to watch it.  There are definitely worse movies, but the movie also is bad because it is so forgettable.  If it had been horribly bad, then at least it would have reached “so-bad-it-is-good” status…instead it just remains a mediocre hunt.