THE GAME: Film Review by Darren Marrese
Ahh, September. I love this time of year. School has resumed; the leaves on the trees are beginning to change color; and all the mega-budget, mega-hyped and mega-disappointing summer action films are finally on their way out of our local cinemas. Thus Fall has officially begun. So, now that another summer of special effect laden films is over, what can we expect from Hollywood in the months to come? Here's your answer: exciting dramas like David Fincher's latest film, The Game. Following hot on the success of 1995's Seven, Fincher has teamed up with The Net's scribes, John Brancato and Michael Ferris, to bring us a spectacular psychological thriller more deserving of your hard earned loonie than any Batman and Robin movie.
The Game stars Michael Douglas and Sean Penn as two wealthy but distant brothers. Douglas plays Nicholas Van Orton, a workaholic facing his 48th birthday. Penn plays Conrad Van Orton, a recovering junkie who prefers to live on the wild side of life with his family's money. As Nick's birthday draws nearer, he finds himself haunted by recurring memories of his long dead father and the inescapable fact that he's alone. Conrad recognizes Nick's need for a change of pace and gives him a gift certificate for a strange and mysterious company called Consumer Recreational Services which promises their clients a 'profound life experience'. Sound intriguing? Wait, it gets better.
In a nutshell, so as not to ruin the movie's fantastic plot twists, CRS specializes in customized games based on each client's psychological and lifestyle deficiencies. Based on the data that CRS has obtained about Nick through a series of physical and psychological tests, they devise a game so twisted and so dangerous that Nick is brought to the very brink of his sanity, and forced to reevaluate every aspect of his life. The object of Nick's game, for instance, is to find out what the object of the game is. Confused yet? So was I, but that's exactly what Fincher wants us to feel.
Half the fun of the film relies heavily on the audiences' ability to empathize with Nick. For instance, while Nick struggles to understand the object of the game, the audience finds themselves struggling as well. Our questions are Nick's questions, and, like Nick, we become confused and agitated when no answers are given. Just when we think we know who is real and who isn't, what's part of the game and what isn't, the creators deliberately throw a monkey wrench into the mechanics of our expectations and lead us off towards another dead end-again, and again, and again. In fact, even the ending is deceiving, but you'll have to go see The Game to see what I mean. Trust me, if you thought the ending of Seven was shocking, you haven't seen anything yet!
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Darren
Just because I'm a nobody doesn't mean that I'm not a somebody!
-third rock from the sun
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