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May 02, 2003
The Game
Dark thriller that almost works Michael Douglas is a successful businessman, very successful, very rich, and very bored. His brother buys him a birthday present, a very strange one, it's a part in a game designed for him personally. Reluctantly Douglas goes for the detailed personality testing required to enter the game, and then forgets about it. A few weeks later, he is caught up in a dangerous situation, and helps a woman escape from some bad people. A lot of this goes on, and Douglas isn't sure, and we're not sure whether what is happening is real, or is part of the game. Then the attempts on his life get even more serious, his brother gets involved and begs him to help him escape the game himself. Then all his wealth is moved out of his bank accounts, and finally he gets drugged and kidnapped and dropped in a foreign country with no identification and no money. Driven almost to madness, he makes his way back home to try and get his life back. He believes the game's original aim was to do this to him, and he wants revenge, and his life back. And this is where everything falls apart, and the film's twist in the tail spoils everything. What happens is that he finds the headquarters for the game's organisers, and goes there with a gun. Blinded by fury, he accidently shoots and kills his brother, then discovers that the whole game really was a game, and that all his money is fine. This is too much for him, so he walks to the edge of the tall building and throws himself off. And then he lands on a big balloon in the banquet hall on the ground floor, where all his friends have been gathered to give him a big party. It's just too neat, nothing could be planned so carefully. Driving a man to suicide as a game to spice up his life is too bizarre, and maybe he will never recover from the shock. And the game itself nearly killed him so many times they could have never been sure he would stay alive until the final denoument. It's a great idea, and very well made and enjoyable right up till the endfinale, but the double twist, and the way that you don't believe it could really ever happen like that, spoil an otherwise excellent film. AE 0Posted by se71 at May 2, 2003 12:22 PM
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