The Only Way to Win is Not to Play...And I Don't Think They'll Let You Do That
This weekend's review: The Game.
The longer I think about The Game, the less I like it. I wanted to watch it because it sounded like a thriller with a neat “what is reality?” type hook. What I got was a movie that left me very uncomfortable.
Our hero of this particular tale is Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas), a rich stockbroker with a bad personality (or rather, exactly the personality type you’d expect from a rich businessman in the movies). On his birthday, his brother Conrad (Sean Penn), turns up and gives him the perfect present for the man who has everything; an invitation to a company that will tailor make a game for you. Initially dismissive, Van Orton’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he goes through all the rigmarole required to get the game made to his specifications. Several days later, after confusingly being told they were rejecting his application, the game starts anyway. The rules aren’t particularly well explained, just that he’ll need to find and use a number of keys in order to proceed, but he’ll have to figure out what those keys are and how to use them. He continues to go about his everyday life, but strange things start happening to him. It starts off small, like his briefcase suddenly not opening, but it gradually escalates until he’s being confronted with multiple murder attempts. It’s very pulse-pounding, but in all the wrong ways. Sadly, I’m going to need to label the rest of the review as full of SPOILERS in order to properly discuss why.
The reason I felt increasingly uneasy while I was watching the movie was because it was very easy to put myself in Van Orton’s shoes as things started to fall apart. I think this may be by design; the filmmakers lure you in by offering up the pleasant daydream of what a game tailor made for you would be like, so when bad things start happening to Van Orton, you’re primed to sympathize with him, since the company would probably wind up doing something similar to you. I suppose I should congratulate the filmmakers for doing a good job in instilling a mood, but the thing is, this isn’t a mood I want to feel. Maybe this is just a case of me and my temperament, but it was way too easy to picture myself in the same situation, unsure of who to trust and getting increasingly paranoid. Which just makes the moments when Van Orton does something dumb all the more frustrating, because you’d think he’d be more inclined to be cautious, especially once the murder attempts start. Some of them I’m willing to give a pass because you don’t always think straight in a crisis situation, but other times, I can definitely tell Admiral Plot Device was involved.
Then there’s the fact that if you pay attention and think about what’s going on, not only do you figure out where this plot is going, but it becomes increasingly more twisted. Before Van Orton goes in to be evaluated for the game, we learn that Conrad used to be a drug addict, but now seems to be a lot better…and he’s played the game too. A little later, Van Orton hears two people talking about the game, and when he asks one of them about it, the man quotes the bible (“I was blind but now I see”) at Van Orten. Given those encounters and the fact that we’ve been seeing Van Orten as a man with a lot of money but no happiness, it doesn’t take too long to figure out that the game is designed to make you a better person, clearly in a “scare ‘em straight” or “Christmas Carol” style. While that did make watching Van Orten’s life fall apart slightly easier to take, there was just enough ambiguity that I couldn’t be sure until the end. Which is where we get to the material that breaks my suspension of disbelief. First, given that Van Orten travels all over New York and even winds up in Mexico at one point, it seems increasingly unlikely that the company would have the money or other resources to get all the people in on it that they do. Second, even though they took complete physical and mental evaluations of Van Orten to get a sense of what he needed and (presumably) how much punishment he could take, there are so many variables that could go wrong, that I personally wouldn’t want to risk putting the client in danger, even if it was just the illusion of one. Third, I find it hard to believe that anybody would go through what Van Orten goes through and conclude that the game was a worthwhile experience. Sure, it might make you a better person, but I feel like I’d wind up in therapy and suing the company for emotional distress, not considering myself satisfied with their work. Which ties in to the fourth and most reprehensible thing, at least in my eyes. Round about the time the game starts, we find out that Van Orten’s father committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the house when Van Orten was a boy, and it’s fairly clear that that image has haunted him for most of his life. At the climax of the movie, Van Orten finally starts getting the upper hand, having gotten hold of a gun the company didn’t know about. He gets one of the players (Deborah Kara Unger) on the roof of their building, locks the door behind them, and demands answers. She freaks out when she realizes it’s a real gun, and tells him it’s all been fake, that he hasn’t lost anything valuable, and that the people cutting through the door right now are Conrad and other friends who are coming to celebrate his birthday. He understandably doesn’t believe her, and fires the gun the moment the doors swing open. Of course, she was right, and he’s just shot and killed his brother. Horrified by what he’s done, Van Orten goes into a daze and jumps off the roof, just like his father did. But instead of dying, he crashes through breakaway safety glass and lands on a big air cushion, where it turns out that everything really is fine, including Conrad being alive, and the game is officially over. That doesn’t change the fact that these people drove a man to suicide. Helping you overcome trauma or improve your outlook on life is one thing, but this is beyond the pale. And once that thought occurred to me, I went from disliking how the movie made me feel to hating the company and the screenwriters for thinking this was a good idea. The first is subjective, but the second is, I would hope, a lot more objectively terrible.
Needless to say, I don’t recommend this movie. Maybe your suspension of disbelief is higher and you won’t take the situation quite as personally, but I’d still suggest finding other thrillers that don’t end up feeling quite so caustic. Or maybe just play an actual game; at least if those start stressing you out, you generally have a chance to change the outcome.
CAT ALERT: At one point, Van Orton tracks down a potential lead and discovers the lead is at the zoo “with the white tiger”. Sure enough, various tigers are in the background of the next scene. Given what Van Orton was going through, I’m kind of shocked one of them didn’t end up getting loose.
The longer I think about The Game, the less I like it. I wanted to watch it because it sounded like a thriller with a neat “what is reality?” type hook. What I got was a movie that left me very uncomfortable.
Our hero of this particular tale is Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas), a rich stockbroker with a bad personality (or rather, exactly the personality type you’d expect from a rich businessman in the movies). On his birthday, his brother Conrad (Sean Penn), turns up and gives him the perfect present for the man who has everything; an invitation to a company that will tailor make a game for you. Initially dismissive, Van Orton’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he goes through all the rigmarole required to get the game made to his specifications. Several days later, after confusingly being told they were rejecting his application, the game starts anyway. The rules aren’t particularly well explained, just that he’ll need to find and use a number of keys in order to proceed, but he’ll have to figure out what those keys are and how to use them. He continues to go about his everyday life, but strange things start happening to him. It starts off small, like his briefcase suddenly not opening, but it gradually escalates until he’s being confronted with multiple murder attempts. It’s very pulse-pounding, but in all the wrong ways. Sadly, I’m going to need to label the rest of the review as full of SPOILERS in order to properly discuss why.
The reason I felt increasingly uneasy while I was watching the movie was because it was very easy to put myself in Van Orton’s shoes as things started to fall apart. I think this may be by design; the filmmakers lure you in by offering up the pleasant daydream of what a game tailor made for you would be like, so when bad things start happening to Van Orton, you’re primed to sympathize with him, since the company would probably wind up doing something similar to you. I suppose I should congratulate the filmmakers for doing a good job in instilling a mood, but the thing is, this isn’t a mood I want to feel. Maybe this is just a case of me and my temperament, but it was way too easy to picture myself in the same situation, unsure of who to trust and getting increasingly paranoid. Which just makes the moments when Van Orton does something dumb all the more frustrating, because you’d think he’d be more inclined to be cautious, especially once the murder attempts start. Some of them I’m willing to give a pass because you don’t always think straight in a crisis situation, but other times, I can definitely tell Admiral Plot Device was involved.
Then there’s the fact that if you pay attention and think about what’s going on, not only do you figure out where this plot is going, but it becomes increasingly more twisted. Before Van Orton goes in to be evaluated for the game, we learn that Conrad used to be a drug addict, but now seems to be a lot better…and he’s played the game too. A little later, Van Orton hears two people talking about the game, and when he asks one of them about it, the man quotes the bible (“I was blind but now I see”) at Van Orten. Given those encounters and the fact that we’ve been seeing Van Orten as a man with a lot of money but no happiness, it doesn’t take too long to figure out that the game is designed to make you a better person, clearly in a “scare ‘em straight” or “Christmas Carol” style. While that did make watching Van Orten’s life fall apart slightly easier to take, there was just enough ambiguity that I couldn’t be sure until the end. Which is where we get to the material that breaks my suspension of disbelief. First, given that Van Orten travels all over New York and even winds up in Mexico at one point, it seems increasingly unlikely that the company would have the money or other resources to get all the people in on it that they do. Second, even though they took complete physical and mental evaluations of Van Orten to get a sense of what he needed and (presumably) how much punishment he could take, there are so many variables that could go wrong, that I personally wouldn’t want to risk putting the client in danger, even if it was just the illusion of one. Third, I find it hard to believe that anybody would go through what Van Orten goes through and conclude that the game was a worthwhile experience. Sure, it might make you a better person, but I feel like I’d wind up in therapy and suing the company for emotional distress, not considering myself satisfied with their work. Which ties in to the fourth and most reprehensible thing, at least in my eyes. Round about the time the game starts, we find out that Van Orten’s father committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the house when Van Orten was a boy, and it’s fairly clear that that image has haunted him for most of his life. At the climax of the movie, Van Orten finally starts getting the upper hand, having gotten hold of a gun the company didn’t know about. He gets one of the players (Deborah Kara Unger) on the roof of their building, locks the door behind them, and demands answers. She freaks out when she realizes it’s a real gun, and tells him it’s all been fake, that he hasn’t lost anything valuable, and that the people cutting through the door right now are Conrad and other friends who are coming to celebrate his birthday. He understandably doesn’t believe her, and fires the gun the moment the doors swing open. Of course, she was right, and he’s just shot and killed his brother. Horrified by what he’s done, Van Orten goes into a daze and jumps off the roof, just like his father did. But instead of dying, he crashes through breakaway safety glass and lands on a big air cushion, where it turns out that everything really is fine, including Conrad being alive, and the game is officially over. That doesn’t change the fact that these people drove a man to suicide. Helping you overcome trauma or improve your outlook on life is one thing, but this is beyond the pale. And once that thought occurred to me, I went from disliking how the movie made me feel to hating the company and the screenwriters for thinking this was a good idea. The first is subjective, but the second is, I would hope, a lot more objectively terrible.
Needless to say, I don’t recommend this movie. Maybe your suspension of disbelief is higher and you won’t take the situation quite as personally, but I’d still suggest finding other thrillers that don’t end up feeling quite so caustic. Or maybe just play an actual game; at least if those start stressing you out, you generally have a chance to change the outcome.
CAT ALERT: At one point, Van Orton tracks down a potential lead and discovers the lead is at the zoo “with the white tiger”. Sure enough, various tigers are in the background of the next scene. Given what Van Orton was going through, I’m kind of shocked one of them didn’t end up getting loose.