'Hunting Ground' a searing look at college rape culture

<b>Mini-review: "The Hunting Ground"</b>

I had to stop watching Kirby Dick's documentary "The Hunting Ground" two or three times just to vent some momentary rage: rage against an American college campus rape culture that appears to be flourishing, rage against the institutions that place profits and reputation above justice, rage against the soulless shills who protect those institutions and rage against a system that assassinates truth and "protects" sexual assault victims - our friends, our daughters, our sons, our sisters and our brothers - by raping them all over again, betraying their trust, their hopes, their dreams and their dignity.

It would be a bad joke to call "The Hunting Ground" a perfect first-date movie for college students. Now that I think about it, maybe that's not such a bad idea.

"Hunting Ground" is Kirby Dick's follow-up to "The Invisible War," a damning indictment of the pro-rape culture in the U.S. American military.

That movie is a far better piece of journalism. "Hunting Ground," despite its solid data and brave testimonials from American college students offering poignant and personal narratives, delves into pure propagandistic appeals to emotions, especially when it employs Lady Gaga's song "Till It Happens to You," a musical interlude you'd usually find on a cheesy Lifetime Channel offering or on a TV commercial soliciting funds for abused dogs.

Dick offers us the obligatory depressing stats: 100,000 students are likely to be raped next year; 16 to 20 percent of students will be sexually assaulted while pursuing an education; assailants often will be fellow students the victims know.

The most disturbing part of "Hunting Ground" is the circling-wagons mentality of universities and colleges. Adopting a favorite device of "The Daily Show," Dick stitches together an alarming montage of official spokesmen all saying the exact same sentence: "We take these charges seriously!" (PR flaks in Robert Kenner's commendable documentary "Merchants of Doubt" could learn something here.)

Dick names many academic institutions with dismal track records for dealing with (often serial) campus rapists. But the University of Notre Dame comes off the worst during the 2014 commencement address in which a school official calls the school "a Bethlehem," after we have heard a campus police detective explain that he resigned because he could no longer be a part of a culture that protected the institution's image over the welfare of its female students.

<b>"The Hunting Ground" opens at the Century Centre in Chicago. Rated PG-13 for language and sexual subject matter. 90 minutes. ★ ★ ★ ½</b>

<i> Dann Gire's column runs Fridays in Time-out! Follow him at @DannGireDHFilm and on Facebook.</i>