These days, it takes a great deal of courage for Hollywood film makers to defy conventions (and, consequently, viewers' expectations). It takes even bigger courage for a Hollywood filmmaker to defy his own conventions, or to be more precise, go against what the audience and critics saw as his brand of film making. For David Fincher this task was somewhat simple because his "brand of films" and his "conventions" were built around only two films - Alien 3 and Se7en. Two of them fared very differently at the box- office, but they both indicated the author who liked dark, depressive and disturbing material. That was enough for audience to have expectations and with those expectations Fincher played in his 1997 thriller The Game.
Protagonist of the film is Nicholas van Horton (played by Michael Douglas), successful and immensely wealthy financier from San Francisco who lives in huge mansion and has everything people in such position are supposed to have. He achieved that by totally dedicating himself to work and trying to control each and every aspect of his life, alienating his friends and family in the process. At his 48th birthday he realises the utter predictability of his life - something that had probably played role in the suicide of his equally rich and successful father. Nicholas' estranged brother Conrad (played by Sean Penn) arrives to offer unusual birthday gift that would bring some excitement to Nicholas' life. He gets Nicholas in touch with CRS, mysterious company that offers unorthodox forms of entertainment to its clients. Nicholas visits CRS premises, goes through series of medical and psychological tests and finally agrees to participate in CRS main product - "Game" - although nobody tells him about the rules or aim. Soon after that series of minor incidents begins to wreak havoc on Nicholas' tightly controlled life routine and it escalates into real nightmare - the mansion is vandalised, TV host speaks directly to him from the screen, he gets kidnapped, drugged and left for dead in Mexico. Nicholas isn't sure whether the Game is really the game or the elaborate scheme designed to steal all of his money. Nicholas wants to get his former life back and his only ally is Christine (played by Deborah Kara Unger), waitress he accidentally met.
Script by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris combines two concepts that were put to good use by thriller directors in the past. The first is the idea of "ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances", which served Hitchcock very well in some of his best works. The other is concept of well-hidden but all-powerful cabals and conspiracies that can easily wreck helpless individuals; the concept was used in some of the best paranoid thrillers of 1960s and 1970s. Fincher gives his very own flavour to those concepts by using dark cinematography and forcing the audience to pay more attention to little details on screen than usual; all that makes viewers empathise with the protagonist who is forced to see potential conspirators in seemingly ordinary people and elaborate traps in seemingly ordinary situations. The feeling of paranoia and anxiety is omnipresent and the audience, unlike Alien 3 and Se7en, where the it could have foreseen sinister conclusions of the sinister stories, can really expect the unexpected. The Game really thrills - something which is missing in overwhelming majority today's Hollywood thrillers.
Michael Douglas, who created some memorable roles by playing rich, cold and arrogant characters, is perfect in the role of the protagonist who is going to be slowly deprived of his wealth, power and sanity. Sean Penn is also very effective in small but memorable role. On the other hand, Deborah Kara Unger wasn't the best choice for this film. She is very good actress, but her look is too glamorous for the ordinary waitress and the audience would have difficulty in completely suspending disbelief. Even bigger problem for The Game is its surreal and unconvincing ending. On the other hand, Fincher could be praised for making such ending completely unpredictable. In doing that he defied conventions. The result is not among the best thrillers ever made, but The Game nevertheless stands out with its quality among 1990s Hollywood's examples of the genre.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on January 29th 2004)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax
Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc
Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA
Brave browser: https://brave.com/dra011
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
