The Game

1997 "What do you get for the man who has everything?"
7.7| 2h9m| R| en| More Info
Released: 12 September 1997 Released
Producted By: Propaganda Films
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: https://www.criterion.com/films/28058-the-game
Synopsis

In honor of his birthday, San Francisco banker Nicholas Van Orton, a financial genius and a cold-hearted loner, receives an unusual present from his younger brother, Conrad: a gift certificate to play a unique kind of game. In nary a nanosecond, Nicholas finds himself consumed by a dangerous set of ever-changing rules, unable to distinguish where the charade ends and reality begins.

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jonwhan699 If you are at all an intelligent human. If you have reason and logic. You will not like this film. It starts off okay, but when the game is meant to make him happy or whatever. Great we get it. He's gotta enjoy life so he doenst kill himself like his Daddy. So we know it's all fake. But wait! It wasn't fake. It was a scam to steal his money! But wait! There's still 30 minutes left and I'm certain it's not going to be 30 minutes of Taken part 4: the late 90s Michael Douglas edition. So the game is still on and everything's fine. I was complaining about the movie the whole time, waiting for it not to follow a really predictable series of events.But it did. And I was right to complain.
antonynous The acting in this film is good, Michael Douglas was really good. I liked the sound effects too. The plot is not entirely bad until Nicholas attempts suicide, but what happens after ruins all: the worst end of all time that makes this movie a mess with the worst plot ever. It turns out that Nicholas is brought to suffer, lose all money, risk his life, kill his brother and commit suicide, but in reality it was all a staging just because his brother Conrad considered him an asshole. WTF! In the end Nicholas also thanks Conrad and the other people that took part and also asks the woman who almost killed him to go out with him... This movies doesn't make any sense, it leads you to feel that it has one meaning for the whole plot, (the scene about the father that commit suicide, the gold wristwatch) but it has no meaning, the end scene ruins everything!
AnusPresley This is a long way from Fincher's best - but nor is it his worst. It is still better than _Benjamin Button_, with its infinite budget and Kubrick-style obsessive perfectionism.I don't want to discuss the film content - just what it was. This is like an extended Twilight Zone episode, with twist upon gotcha upon twist. While these were good, they weren't mind-blowing. The best descriptor is "competent". As far as his film's go, it's in my second tier of his selections along with _Panic Room_. Competent but not extraordinary. That said, it's still leaps above your typical Hollywood barf. Fincher managed to snag Michael Douglas for this, one would assume on the tails of the much superior _Se7en_from 2 years prior. That's a minus for me - I find it hard to take Douglas films seriously.But I nitpick. By general standards this is superb viewing for stay-at-home, night in popcorn viewing. It engrosses and keeps your attention. As such I do recommend. But by Fincher standards, it's pretty mediocre, nowhere near the heights he reaches in _Fight Club_, _Zodiac_ or _Gone Girl_. It's still well worth viewing.
colinscouser-05442 Michael Douglas' performance superbly holds this film together. Now matter how ludicrous the plot becomes - and it does become ludicrous - Douglas plays it so that he and the audience together are none the wiser and piece it together at the same speed. Although it seemed highly original to me at first, in fact its plot owes a lot to the 1984 Remington Steele episode 'Elementary Steele'. The fact that punters have paid £500 to a business so as to take part in 'The Game' where a mystery is laid out for them around the city to solve; the fact that it starts to look like a scam; that the punters (playing Holmes and Watson) chase someone who they think is part of The Game but she protests she is not, and says she is just an actress, when she clearly knows more than she is letting on; plus. gunshots fired (at Remington Steele) in the street turn out to be blanks because the gun is part of the Game; plus, when Remington Steele visits the business's offices (doing his detective there), he finds almost no-one and nothing in the room (basic office furniture); etc, etc. All these things are developed in the Michael Douglas film, turning a light romp into a dark thriller that keeps you guessing. Highly entertaining and tense. It's increasingly less and less plausible but Douglas keeps you believing, just.