Film review by Kevin Patterson
The Game * * * (out of four) R, 1997 Directed by David Fincher. Written by John D. Brancato, Michael Ferris, and Andrew Kevin Walker. Starring Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Unger.
Corporate executive Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) has pretty much got it made as far as cash flow goes: he owns an incredibly successful business, he has a house the size of a small subdivision, and he doesn't even seem to be working all that hard at it. He also makes for rather unpleasant company; he is arrogant and apathetic, and he knows it - he doesn't even bother to respond when his secretary wishes him a happy birthday, and his best friend seems to be his maid. His life is luxurious but formulaic and, frankly, boring. Then, one day, his brother Conrad (Sean Penn) arrives with a unique birthday gift for him: a company known only as Consumer Recreation Services (CRS) will put on a "game" for him to play. The twist is that he doesn't know the rules or the object of the game; he knows when it starts, but after that it's up to him to figure out what to do next.
This is the plot of David Fincher's "The Game," and if you think about it, it's just about the best plot you could have for a suspense movie. With this powerful, wealthy entertainment company pulling the strings, anything - and I do mean literally anything - can happen; playing this game is like trying to assemble a puzzle but not knowing what the final picture is supposed to look like. In fact, one of the most humorous moments of the movie is Nicholas's attempt to describe his progress in the game to possible-ally Christine (Deborah Unger) - "I got the key . . . out of a mouth, from this . . . um . . . clown . . . ."
It isn't long, however, before what seems at first like a series of benign practical jokes takes a dangerous turn; Nicholas understandably begins to feel his life is threatened when the game starts requiring him to do things like extracting himself from a taxi submerged hundreds of feet underwater. Furthermore, his financial power and prestige evaporate through CRS's manipulations, and he is forced to see things from the other side of the fence. The lessons that he learns about money and greed are fairly predictable and certainly nothing we haven't seen in the movies before, but this aspect of the film does at least add a human element to the story and makes Nicholas a sympathetic focal point for the atmosphere of fear and paranoia that Fincher creates.
The only thing wrong with "The Game," then, is that the story is really rather ludicrous if given much thought. There were too many instances in which the slightest deviation would have either cost Van Orton his life for real, caused CRS's design to fall apart, or both. I found myself occasionally comparing this movie to Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys" in terms of plot twists, but that film had a narrative escape hatch in that it was a science-fiction story involving time travel. "The Game" purports to be taking place in the real world, and I find that a little hard to swallow. That said, this didn't prevent me from enjoying the movie. And if other directors can get away with flying buses, spontaneously exploding boats, and the like, then I suppose we can let Fincher have an omnipotent entertainment company.
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