By John Serba
Published
June 25, 2024, 6:00 p.m. ET
Prey (now streaming on Hulu) is destined to be confused with the many, many other movies titled Prey – and I have two theories as to why the filmmakers stuck with this generic title. The first is, it’s a pun, since the movie is about Christian missionaries who like to p-r-A-y pray, and then, once they’re stalked by lions, they become p-r-E-y prey. The second is, everyone involved was so ashamed with the quality of this D-grade genre crapola, they kind of hoped it’d get lost in the shuffle, because its cast of rent-a-stars – Emile Hirsch, Ryan Philippe, Mena Suvari – can’t do a damn thing with this junky material.
PREY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: THE AFRICAN SAVANNAH. There’s some elephants! And zebras. Antelopes. Also – ulp – lions. Are the wild-animal establishing shots stock footage, or did the makers of Prey employ wildlife photographers to sit quietly in the bush for hours and days and weeks at a time to capture this breathtaking imagery? I shan’t hazard a guess. Anyway, somewhere among this desolate beauty is an encampment. In a tent, Andrew (Philippe), a doctor, grieves. A boy is on his operating table, dead. The supplies he needed to save the kid never arrived. Nearby, Andrew’s wife Sue (Suvari) conducts a bible study with some children. Thabo (Jeremy Tardy) rouses the couple from their doings with news that local militants are about to arrive and send them to their great and merciful god, so it’s time to pack up and GTFO. This missionary trip is kaputskies, bro.
Their means of GTFOing is problematic, though: A jalopy of a Cessna piloted by a cretin named Gurn (Hirsch) who shakes the couple down for a pile of cash and won’t let them take their luggage. We see Gurn bribe the local officials, so you know he’s up to no good and also participating in the obvious unscrupulous destiny of a man named Gurn. Who would name their child Gurn? It dooms an individual to being a rat fink-ass human. Robert, Frank, Pat, Jehosophat, Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo, there are so many other names out there better than Gurn. Come on. Anyway, Andrew and Sue aren’t alone in the plane – Thabo is coming with them, and there’s three young turdburglars crammed in there too, emitting the vibes of rich kids taking an expensive vacation with Daddy’s money and getting more than they bargained for. Which they do, because the plane promptly crashes. Well, shit.
The smoke clears and the plane is in a few pieces, with amazingly clean cuts even, like someone with a cutting torch neatly sheared off the cockpit, then arranged bits and chunks hither and thither and put a passenger chair very artfully skewed in the foreground of the shot. Andrew wakes up in a dustpile, as if from a bad dream. One of the turdburglars didn’t survive, and Sue is injured in the cabin with a cut on her calf that renders her the flimsiest human being in the history of human beings. She just can’t get up and walk. I mean, they had to use like nine, maybe 10 inches of gauze to wrap the cut. As the guy said, IT’S ONLY A FLESH WOUND, but there she is, coagulating away, which is just the type of thing a lion might smell from a mile off, maybe two miles. Gurn gurns around a bit – note, Webster’s defines “gurning” as “being a cranky butthole who’s pretty much just in it for himself” – and decides they need to hoof it to the nearest settlement, but Andrew and Sue decide to stay at the crash site. Why? God will save them, they insist. Say what you will about Gurn, but at least he realizes that god also made hungry lions.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Remember when Idris Elba fought a lion with his damn bare hands in Beast, and it was kinda dumb fun? Well, that’s 1,000 times better than this budget-stricken crudola.
Performance Worth Watching: Hirsch camps it up a bit, but doesn’t camp it up enough to make this movie watchable.
Memorable Dialogue: “Is faith just the absence of common sense?” Gurn asks of Andrew and Sue, foreshadowing a theological debate that never happens in the movie, because it’s too dumb to have any ideas.
Sex and Skin: None. The lord is watching, y’know.
Our Take: Fourteen minutes into Prey and you’re already going NAH. The plot’s too logic-deprived, the characters too wispy-thin, the situation too predictable, the seams of the production too visible. Twenty minutes in, and as the film cuts away to yet another shot of generic NatGeo nature footage, and we get more implied action because the movie doesn’t have the budget to actually show any – well, that’s our cue to hit eject and head back to Blockbuster and pick out something that isn’t such a stink-o loser.
Then again, perhaps you could dig into Prey and make the best of it, assuming you can appreciate the bevy of cliches on display: Drink when the characters make questionable decisions. Drink when a heartfelt exchange between characters inevitably results in one of them being messily devoured by lions – off-screen, of course. Drink when one of the characters treks across a desert and falls down, moaning “Water… water.” Drink every time the lions act like no lion would ever act in reality, e.g., growling while stalking its prey. Drink when our protags are put upon by scorpions and/or snakes while they’re being stalked by lions. Drink when the film trots out icky African-guerrilla-terrorist stereotypes. Drink every time Hirsch’s eyes widen in an attempt to make this movie even slightly more watchable. Drink when the deus ex machina hurtles itself down from the heavens at the most opportune time. This movie is not a comedy unless you make it so.
Our Call: Maybe Prey is unintentionally funny, but I’m not convinced it’s still worth gutting out. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
