The biggest surprise of The Hunger Games is how violent it seems. Shot for a PG-13 rating in America (and shorn of seven seconds of bleeding out to get a similar rating in the UK), The Hunger Games doesn't dwell on the detail of death. Instead, lives are extinguished in rapid blurs and quick-cut glimpses. Teenagers are on top of each other in seconds, slashing and stabbing. Opponents square up and just terminate each other. The mystical kung-fu neck break is a favoured technique in Gary Ross' film; that short, sharp twist perfected by the muscular lugs of 1980s action cinema. Unlike the horror of Bruce Lee killing Jackie Chan's unfortunate heavy in Enter the Dragon, here it's a fast-forwarded simulacra; snapping vertebrae, minus all the strain and clasping intimacy. It's just something instantly recognisable as a person's off switch. A cinematic shorthand for finality. The move is routinely employed here by a clique of all-American jocks who roam together, laughing and joking about their enemy's death rattles. I'm not completely certain, but I think the Schwarzenegger neck-twist happens silently in this film too. There's none of the usual cracking cavitation that you'd hear in the latest martial-arts wheeze. We are spared the sound of bones stressing and shattering, as if the visual cue is markedly less alarming. I'm not sure it is. It creates a dissonance in this viewer. The murderer's lack of effort is more alarming. Seeing someone fall dead after a brief 12A friendly shake is a shock. There isn't adequate cause for the effect. It's hilarious. By trimming all the exertion out of brutality to appease ratings boards, teen movie mangling hasn't become palatable, it has instead become something slightly startling.
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