Review: The Game By: C. Michael Bailey
Starring: Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Unger, Peter Donat, Carroll Baker, and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Directed by: David Fincher Polygram 1997 125 minutes
Take This Is Your Life, A Christmas Carol, and Deathtrap, mix them together and you get a potent thriller like The Game. David Fincher, whose previous outing Seven defined 1990s American noir, issues forth another provocatively dark treat.
The premise: Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) is a wealthy investment banker in San Francisco who blandly and hard-heartedly goes through the daily motions of a unhappy life. Haunted by his father's suicide (recorded as grainy 8 mm family footage from his childhood) and a failed marriage, Van Orton manifests his fear and bitterness by coldly firing an old family friend because of declining profits.
Enter Conrad Van Orton (Sean Penn), Nicholas' brother. Conrad, "Connie" to Nicholas, meets his brother for lunch to wish him a happy birthday. As a present, Conrad gives Nicholas and gift certificate to CRS, Consumer Recreation Services. CRS is a company that specializes in custom tailored "games" for the participant. Conrad tells him to call the number on the card. "To make your life fun," Conrad says. Fun is something Nicholas desperately needs to have.
Nicholas is skeptical at first but makes the call to CRS after overhearing a conversation between two men at his health club. Curious now, he goes to the CRS office and is asked to take several psychological and physical tests that take the better part of a day. He leaves CRS being told that they will contact him. He is contacted, interrupted during a business meeting on his cellular phone, and is told that his application was rejected. He had not provided his cellular number to CRS, a mystery. And thus, Nicholas Van Orton's game begins.
After a slow start, The Game accelerates as Van Orton is bounced like a pinball from one conspiratorial scenario to the next. Beginning with finding a wooden clown laying face down in his driveway to fleeing from assassins to believing that this game is part of an elaborate con to steal all of his money, Nicholas finds himself becoming more and more off center. His carefully controlled world begins to fray and unravel. Originally told that "the game" would be a life-changing experience, Nicholas finds himself dirty and drugged in a Mexican crypt wondering what the experience is and wondering if it can all be really be real. As the movie spirals unpredictably to its conclusion, the viewer, like Van Orton, is wondering about the "fun" Conrad alluded to earlier in the film.
Michael Douglas is well cast as the financially successful, spiritually bankrupt Van Orton. Sean Penn has little more than a bit role in this film, but is also effective playing Nicholas' dark sheep brother. Deborah Unger (most recently in David Cronenberg's Crash) plays a mysterious waitress at Van Orton's favorite club who ultimately plays a pivotal role in Nicholas' "game". Fincher's San Francisco is a dark place though not as dark as the mythic metropolis of Seven. The Game proves to be a more polished and ultimately predictable film than Seven. Predictable, but not too predictable. Fincher deftly takes the viewer along for the ride, not really betraying what is coming next. This effect is a much because of the memory of his daring, anti-Hollywood conclusion of Seven as it is his carefully crafted script.
With The Game, David Fincher emerges as an intriguing and vital force in American film making. During this rather fallow time when really fine and provocative films are few and far between, Fincher and his fine directing are greatly welcome.
-- C. Michael Bailey
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