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The Game (1997)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
September 30th, 2007
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'The Game' is an elaborately and intricately plotted thriller from David Fincher, with a masterful performance from Michael Douglas, as self-absorbed millionaire Nicholas Van Orton, who receives a special birthday gift from his brother Conrad (Sean Penn), an invitation to the services of a company called CRS, which sets up its customers in a complex live-action game that subjects them to bizarre pranks that become more and more deadly, even threatening their lives and stripping them of everything they hold dear. This is a film that I find intriguing, it is superbly stylish and compelling, but I am at a loss to understand it, as much of its narrative doesn't make much sense, and it throws out one surprise after another, without much concern for plausibility or logic. The abundant twists and turns keep us baffled, as they do Nicholas, who cannot figure out what is going on, and is constantly wondering whether the people he meets and the events he experiences are actually real, or all part of 'The Game'. That is a good question. I don't think the movie plays fair, it wants to cheat and cut corners and not explain everything, at least not sufficiently. The ending just hits all the wrong notes, in my view, but at least Douglas is consistently strong.
Penn and Deborah Kara Unger (as Christine, a waitress who spills drinks on Nicholas and gets fired, but then crosses paths with him shortly thereafter and gets caught up in the strange proceedings) provide powerful support, even though this is undoubtedly Douglas's movie; he is in nearly every scene, and starts off being a lot like Gordon Gecko from Wall Street, but changes quite drastically as the story progresses, and maybe this transformation is really the whole point of everything, even though the physical and psychological torment Nicholas endures is intolerably excessive, not to mention sadistic.
When Nicholas takes a gun and attempts to hunt down those responsible for his misery (and dumping him penniless and unconscious in Mexico), I sympathized with him, and hoped he got revenge. More intelligent or attentive viewers may be able to figure out the subtleties and riddles of the plot, but I could not. I was puzzled and confused, sometimes frustrated, but also curious as to what would happen next. As a huge Michael Douglas fan, I was not bound to miss this, and it might possibly be one of his best performances, but perhaps I have an aversion to smart, yet incredibly dense, films that deliberately lead me along and confound me.
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