History Film / HuntForTheWilderpeople

* DepartmentOfChildDisservices: It's suggested that Child Services in general isn't malicious but doesn't know how to handle kids like Ricky, who get shuffled from placement to placement until something happens to them. Ricky's case worker in particular is a cynic who spouts aspirational catchphrases but thinks the worst of everybody and exerts a minimal amount of actual care and attention in her work. There's also the running joke about how Ricky was taught to express his feelings through poetry -- by someone whose notion of poetry begins and ends with haiku.

->''Me and this fat kid''\\

''And it was the best''

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Hec goes to jail and Ricky is placed with a new family, but one who treats him well, and the two go off in the bush again together to look for the huia they found again.]]

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: After reading a poster which describes official fears that Hec, described as a "a Cauc-Asian male in his 60s", may have abducted and harmed Ricky, Ricky says indignantly that they obviously don't know anything about Hec -- he's not Asian.
* ConspiracyTheorist: At one point, Ricky and Hec encounter a conspiracy theorist named Sam who's been living off the grid for 15 years and believes in the importance of [[TinfoilHat wearing a colander on your head to block the mind control rays]].
* CowboyCop: Ricky's case worker has pretty much convinced herself that she's the protagonist of an action film and approves excessive force against Hec and Ricky. This is especially egregious because she's not even a cop, but a social worker who should be advocating for her charge's well-being. Called out at the end (see ReadingYourRights).

* CrushFilter: When Ricky first meets Kahu, and again later, there's a shot of her from his point of view in which she's backlit, moving in glamorous slow motion, and her hair is blowing in a HotWind. The second instance is lampshaded by happening at the same time as a TV in the background is showing an advertisment using the same technique.

* DueToTheDead: Hec has [[TheStoic few sentimental feelings about Bella's ashes]], but Ricky takes them with him into the bush, and then end up spreading them into a river on the mountain, echoing an earlier comment she made about where her soul will go when she dies. Hec is amused to discover that Bella has been traveling with them all this time.

* FakingTheDead: Before lighting out for the bush, Ricky attempts to fake his death by making an effigy dressed in some of his clothes and setting fire to it. It doesn't fool anybody, and is one of the things that makes the authorities (who don't know who made the effigy or set fire to it) question Hec's intentions. Psycho Sam also suggests that they do it when the authorities are closing in on them.

* HonoraryUncle: Bella invites Ricky to call her "Aunty". Hec resists being called "Uncle" [[spoiler:until the final scene]].

* MercyKill: Hec takes it upon himself to shoot Zag in the head after the dog is mortally wounded fighting a wild boar.

* NobodyPoops: Averted with Ricky who has to do it in the bush. He gets annoyed when Hec insists that he bury it and use leaves as toilet paper.
* OddCouple: Ricky is a motor-mouthed urban teenager who reads a lot for escapism and valorizes the gangsta lifestyle; Hec is a laconic bushman who can't read and has seen enough of violence and prison to know how glamorous they aren't. They don't get on at all to begin with, but grow closer together when circumstances force them to depend on each other.
* PerpetualSmiler: Even after just killing a wild boar with a knife, Bella is all smiles. 
* PokeThePoodle: Ricky's case worker gives a long list of misdemeanors he's commited such as shoplifting, spitting, vandalism, and graffiti, which she gives as evidence that he's a menace to society.
* PriceOnTheirHead: As the manhunt drags on, a reward of $10,000 is offered for anyone who brings Ricky and Hec in. A dimwitted police spokesman automatically adds "dead or alive", then has to hurriedly clarify that they would really prefer "alive". Ricky's reaction to finding out is to suggest they hold out until it goes up to $20,000.

** When Ricky and Hec hide among some tree roots as the police searchers pass overhead, Ricky mouths and pantomimes something to Hec which he doesn't understand. Once the danger is past, Ricky explains he was saying it was just like ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing'', by which he means the part where the Hobbits hide from a Ringwraith in an identical manner.
** Ricky's argument with his case worker gets into which of them is Film/TheTerminator and which of them is Sarah Connor.

* TanksButNoTanks: Weird example. When the climactic chase scene strays into an army base (probably Waiouru Military Camp), the New Zealand army soldiers are shown forming a blockade with their NZLAV armoured vehicles, but meanwhile Paula is shown trying to race down Ricky and Hec on a Polish-made OT-64 SKOT - which was never in service in New Zealand.
** Paula has her ways.
* TeenPregnancy: Ricky is the result of one, leaving his mother to abandon him. He blames himself for his mother not wanting him, but Hec admits that she must have been overwhelmed due to her young age.
* ThatCameOutWrong: During Ricky and Hec's first attempt to emerge from the wilderness, the hunters who find them ask Ricky if he's all right and he gives a disjointed answer about Hec making him do things he didn't enjoy (meaning things like fetching firewood and using leaves as toilet paper) and forcing him to play with himself (because Hec wasn't in the mood to play with him). It does absolutely nothing to reassure the searchers of Hec's innocence.

* TitleDrop: Ricky recalls reading about wildebeest traveling hundreds of miles in search of better living conditions, and says that that's what they're doing, except that they're people instead of beasts.
* TookALevelInBadass: Ricky starts off bumbling and inept, especially in nature, but grows to be quite competent and resourceful in the bush. On the other hand:
* TookALevelInKindness: Hec starts off being gruff and distantly with his nephew Ricky, but eventually grows closer with him and becomes more outward of his protectiveness.

* LawOfInverseFertility: Discussed. After Hec says that he and Bella were never able to have children of their own due to his infertility ([[{{Retcon}} Retconning the fact they originally had an offspring in the book]]), Ricky muses about how unfair it is that some people can have kids and others can't, as his own mother abandoned him.

* CowboyCop: Ricky's case worker has pretty much convinced herself that she's the protagonist of an action film and approves excessive force against Hec and Ricky. This is especially egregious because she's not even a cop, but a social worker who should be advocating for her charge's well-being.

* TookALevelInBadass: Ricky starts off bumbling and inept, especially in nature, but grows to be quite competent and resourceful in the bush.

* LawOfInverseFertility: Discussed. After Hec says that he and Bella were never able to have children of their own due to his infertility ([[{{Retcon}} Retconning the fact they originally had an offspring in the book), Ricky muses about how unfair it is that some people can have kids and others can't, as his own mother abandoned him.

* LawOfInverseFertility: Discussed. After Hec says that he and Bella were never able to have children of their own due to his infertility, Ricky muses about how unfair it is that some people can have kids and others can't, as his own mother abandoned him.

Ricky, a fat, gangsta-obsessed Maori city kid who has been through a succession of foster placements, is sent to live on a remote farm with new foster parent "Aunty Bella" and her grouchy, withdrawn husband Hec. After a shaky start, he finds a home, until Bella dies suddenly and Ricky decides to hide out in the bush rather than be taken back into the indifferent embrace of Child Services. Hec goes to fetch him out, and a string of accidents and misunderstandings results in the two of them going on the run from a manhunt convinced that Hec has abducted Ricky.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: After reading a poster which describes official fears that Hec, described as a "a Caucasian male in his 60s", may have abducted and harmed Ricky, Ricky says indignantly that they obviously don't know anything about Hec -- he's not Asian.

* DrivenToSuicide: It's heavily implied that Amber, a girl Ricky knew from foster care, was molested by her foster father and killed herself.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Bella suddenly collapses and dies midway through the first act.
* DueToTheDead: Hec has [[TheStoic few sentimental feelings about Bella's ashes]], but Ricky takes them with him into the bush, and then end up spreading them into a river on the mountain, echoing an earlier comment she made about where her soul will go when she dies.

* HonoraryUncle: Bella invites Ricky to call her "Aunty". Hec resists being called "Uncle" for most of the film, before allowing it at the end.

* InvoluntaryGroupSplit: Ricky and Hec are briefly separated after police rescue the ill rangers, but Ricky manages to find his way back all on his own.

* MoodWhiplash: Bella's sudden and harsh death is immediately juxtaposed by one of the funniest scenes in the movie, where Creator/TaikaWaititi makes his cameo as the priest at her funeral.

** When Ricky and Hec hide among some tree roots as the police searchers pass overhead, Ricky mouths and pantomimes something to Hec which he doesn't understand. Once the danger is past, Ricky explains he was saying it was just like ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'', by which he means the part where the Hobbits hide from a Ringwraith in an identical manner.

Ricky, a fat, gangsta-obsessed city kid who has been through a succession of foster placements, is sent to live on a remote farm with new foster parent "Aunty Bella" and her grouchy, withdrawn husband Hec. After a shaky start, he finds a home, until Bella dies suddenly and Ricky decides to hide out in the bush rather than be taken back into the indifferent embrace of Child Services. Hec goes to fetch him out, and a string of accidents and misunderstandings results in the two of them going on the run from a manhunt convinced that Hec has abducted Ricky.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Bella mocks Ricky's weight and eating habits right after meeting him, but genuinely cares about him, and Hec remarks that she loved bringing in "strays" and making them feel at home.

* ReadingYourRights: Played with. When the police catch up with Ricky and Hec, the case worker starts shouting at Hec that anything he says will be used against him in court, until a policeman calms her down and points out that (a) MirandaRights is an American thing, and the police in New Zealand do it differently, and (b) she's not police anyway.