Jon’s review published on Letterboxd:
This is so Harmony Korine but more straightforward.
I found this to be a worthwhile commentary on the possibilities of theater, community, and videogames.
It's easy to dismiss this as "not a real movie" and "a glorified YouTube video", but it's not as silly as it sounds. Of course, it's not the most sophisticated thing you'll ever see, but there's a real depth to it and it achieves great things.
As someone who used to watch YouTube videos of people fucking around in GTA V, I wasn't shocked by the existence of this, I just didn't expect it to be so poetic and existential. I found that putting Shakespeare lines next to in-game footage made the game less silly and more beautiful.
I found it really interesting because it's a "film" about a production of Hamlet and a commentary on the play, "a play where everyone dies."
As someone who has never read the play or seen it live, this got me interested in Hamlet and theater in general.
Edit: I realize now that there are feature-length YouTube videos made in GTA, but maybe none of them have the ambition of Grand Theft Hamlet, so they don't get released in theaters and then dumped on streaming services. To be honest, I don't think this is cinema with a capital C, and it's certainly not a documentary, and these videos certainly aren't cinema either, but who cares?