REINDEER GAMES A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Rudy (Ben Affleck) must feel like the luckiest guy in the world. In just 2 days he'll be out of prison and able to get that big mug of hot chocolate that he's been craving. Once out, however, Rudy is hit by such a tornado of events that he'll soon begin to miss the relative serenity of incarceration.
REINDEER GAMES by director John Frankenheimer (RONIN and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE) is unadulterated fun. Mixing in black comedy, a big robbery and a cat-and-mouse game, the thriller moves with the speed of a locomotive. Director Frankenheimer keeps his foot firmly and confidently on the throttle, and the bright and humorous script by Ehren Kruger creates characters as funny as they are genuine. Even when the story twists and turns with its series of double crosses, it always feels honest and somehow plausible even if outlandish.
It all starts when Rudy's cellmate and buddy, Nick (James Frain), is stabbed to death just before they get released. Nick has been corresponding with a pen pal, Ashley (Charlize Theron), who comes to meet him. One look at the gorgeous Ashley, and Rudy decides he must impersonate Nick, at least long enough for some much-missed good sex.
Set during a snow covered Christmas season, the movie starts with short-lived joy. Rudy finds Ashley to be the best Christmas present that a man has ever received. But their blissful time of intimate small talk and enthusiastic sex is soon interrupted by her slimy brother, Gabriel (Gary Sinise), and his band of thugs. They want Rudy, whom they think is Nick, to help them rob the Tomahawk Casino where Nick used to work as a security guard.
Since claiming not to be Nick would just make him look expendable, Rudy says he is Nick. The rest of the picture has him in constant danger of being killed by the hotheaded crooks. He keeps trying to escape when he isn't busy planning the robbery that he wants no part of. He figures that they'll kill him as soon as the job is done.
With so many movies these days misusing great casts and so many scripts having trouble creating credible characters, it is refreshing to watch a picture that lets the audience have a high old time without insulting the viewers' or the actors' intelligence.
Ben Affleck seems born to play parts like Rudy, an everyman caught up in circumstances beyond his control. Rudy tries to stay one step ahead of the game, but he spends most of his time in catch-up mode.
Gary Sinise's villain is at once frighteningly vicious and quite charming. Like most of the rest of the characters, his Gabriel seems constantly in jeopardy of being out-conned.
Charlize Theron (so wonderful in THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE) plays a woman that's tough yet vulnerable and always sexy. As the plot advances, she just keeps getting better and better, and no scene tops her poolside one.
"A lot of relationships start off this way -- family problems," Ashley tells her would-be boyfriend Nick (actually Rudy), as all hell breaks loose. Since he figures her brother will plug him at any moment, this platitude isn't exactly reassuring.
The script is full of little PULP FICTION like moments. One of the best has one of Gabriel's tattooed henchmen reading a BusinessWeek article on stock investing strategies. After discovering that fifty percent of all retail sales occur in the weeks leading up to Christmas, he reasons that, if the government was smart, it would designate a Christmas II during the summer.
The out-of-the-way casino is run by Jack Bangs, played by a perfectly cast Dennis Farina, who'd rather be in Vegas. "Nobody even comes here to cheat," he laments as he looks down on the sparsely populated gambling floor.
Although the film relies more on the dialog than the sight gags for its laughs, some of the costuming is deliciously funny. When Rudy goes into the casino to case the joint, Gabriel dresses him in a garish Cowboy outfit which looks like something that a circus clown might wear in a rodeo. The pièces de résistance are the costumes that the guys wear for the big job. They dress up as department store Santas with the worst fitting beards imaginable.
REINDEER GAMES runs 1:45. It is rated R for strong violence, language and sexuality and would be fine for older teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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