The Game
 

There's not a doubt in my mind that this film has been discussed here. However, the word "game" is too short for this site's search function, and six pages of results for the word "Fincher" in the movie forum didn't include one thread devoted to this movie. So, I'd rather not play trail and error all night long with the search engine. If somebody can point me in the direction of the thread (perhaps you remember a keyword in the title that can be searched for), I'd greatly appreciate it.

If, somehow, there's no existing thread on the film...feel free to start throwing out your opinions of it in here. I watched it tonight for the first time and I was left with a few very polarizing thoughts and opinions. I'd like to see what others thought before I go into it, though. So, if somebody can link me, I'd appreciate it...or if there's no existing thread and you want to start discussing the movie here, have at it. I'd love to read over the thoughts of others.

-JP

I first saw a little bit of this movie at a family party a few years ago when it was on tv. I didnt realy know much about it but i was intrigued. I then rented the movie on DVD and thought it was great. David Fincher did an amazing job directing it, i love the twists. Michael Douglas also did an amazing job acting. I definently reccomend this movie to anyone who enjoys a good thriller.

It's a shame that this is Fincher's only movie that, so far, doesn't have special treatment on DVD.

I've always liked the movie but I know some thought the was a cop-out. It's his most straight-forward film so maybe they were expecting more. Who knows... all I know is I think it's a cool flick.

Panic Room was pretty straight-forward movie

Great movie.

I too am waiting for a SE DVD.

Great movie.

Originally saw this at an Entertainment Weekly press screening in Seattle. Loved it and the audience loved it. They didn't give away and freebies though. :(
Movie rocks, loved the ending, waiting for an SE or CC.

So far, I've enjoyed all of Fincher's movies. Can't say that about a lot of directors.

And yes, "The Game" was top-notch.

I rented and watched it way back when. Loved it. Count me as one waiting for a SE before I buy it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that wouldn't mind playing. :up:

Great movie.

Damn....now I gotta go pop the DVD in. There go the next 2 hours of my life :(

It's a Fincher film, of course it's brilliant! Shame on you, OP for not watching it sooner.

I loved it! Watched The Game four times, since I purchased the DVD when it was first released. Very suspenseful, It kept you on the edge of your seat. The movie was cleverly unpredictable, that's what made it so intriguing, and interesting with a surprised ending. Strictly one of a kind, a totally different movie.

Hopefully, an anamorphic transfer of this DVD, with other special features will be re-release someday in the near future. That would be great.

There's a R2 disc coming...

I really like it, it's rare for thrillers to have good endings that don't seem forced or random. This one worked very well, I thought Douglas & Penn played off each other well.

who owns the rights? I know it was released by Polygram, but their catalogue got bought out by MGM I think....didn't MGM just get bought out by sony?

Got both the movie and the original mini series (The One Game) on DVD and it's quite good (albeit a little weird). I think part of the reason I did like it was that I'd seen the movie beforehand.

For me, the ending didn't quite work (YMMV), but most Fincher films tend to leave me a little that way. They're great up until about the last 5 minutes of the film and then go pffft.

PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was sold to Seagrams and then became part of Universal Pictures in 1999.

DJ

Per my usual, I'm not going to chop up this post with little black boxes (or conceal the entire thing in one large one). Instead, I'll put it in nice, bold capital letters for everybody to see: *SPOILERS WITHIN THE FOLLOWING POST.* Okay, now then...

So, I just got back in town. Now that I've read the thoughts of a few people, I'll chime in with my opinion. Along with "naughty jonny," I'm in the minority, it seems. I adore Fight Club, and I think Se7en is great. I liked Panic Room, and while I haven't seen his turn at directing an Alien film, I think it goes without saying that I really respect David Fincher's work. That's why I was looking forward to this one so much. However this film fell way short of what I was expecting. Perhaps I built it up too much in my head. I don't know.

The reason the film falls short in my eyes: the final five minutes. The twist, which, by the common definition, isn't really a twist at all since it reaffirms what we were told from the get-go, just doesn't work for me. It throws the rest of the film out of balance. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea...that a company was clever enough to pull off everything we saw. However, no company could be. I'm all for suspension of disbelief...but there comes a point where that's just not possible. Numerous things just don't work...

How could they have pretended to shoot up a house in the middle of a neighborhood without anybody calling the authorities?
When Van Orton went to commit suicide at the end, how could they have possibly known which of the roof's four sides he would jump from?
In the mock-taxi crash, sure there were divers...but what if he'd been seriously injured or even killed by smacking his head during the impact?

Just a few of the many things that stand out as being implausible. Now, if the original twist had held true...that they were scamming him for his money, all of these implausibilities would have gone out the window. After all, when you're trying to kill somebody, you don't worry about a neighbor calling the police to report five minutes of automatic gunfire. You don't have to worry about "what if he gets seriously injured, or goes into cardiac arrest when we drive his taxi into a large body of water." The film just makes more sense if it's held to it's original twist.

Above all else, though, I despised his reaction. The man tried to commit suicide. He jumped off of a huge fucking building in an attempt to take his own life. Once more: he was so distraught that he tried to end his life, leave this earth, call it quits. You don't go from that mindstate to, ("You got Punk'd!" "Oh lol it was all a joke, good one guys") in a matter of minutes. He would need serious therapy after an event like that. Plus, I know it was supposedly for his own good and all...but after being put through hell on earth the way he was, would his character really just smile and offer hugs to his tormentors? Say, "well I know that you put me through lots of exciting but rather traumatic events, but what the hell...wanna split the bill?" I know a lot of people want to go through something as exciting as what he went through...but when you really think about it, would you? Would you really want to be put through hell, turned into a paranoid wreck so willing and eager to end it all that you'd actually make the leap? Honestly?

I'd still give the film a seven or an eight, because like some of you have said, it truly was suspensful. It was well-acted, had a great tone, and provided some serious thrills. It would've captured a spot among my favorites were it not for the ending.

-JP

CRS would have many different scenarios set up for each possible decision Van Orton could make. As the viewer, we only see the consequences of the choices he makes and not how the company works. Think it like one of those 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books where you can pick which path to make.

It's plausible that CRS owns more than the one apartment in the street. They could own the whole block. Part of his game was that Nicolas was to track the woman down so the events of the shooting, as far as the reality of the film goes, was planned for.

They probably had every side covered in that event. The real question is how did he not hit one of the support beams? ;)

Because that's too obvious and actually not really as interesting.

He tried killing himself because he thought he killed his brother. When he sees him again, any thought of suicide would be overwhelmed by relief.

It certainly changed the character's life for the better and sometimes extreme circumstances like these are the only way some people change.

I've understood that from the beginning, but this isn't a blanket explanation for every fault the film had.

I don't know that the shooting was planned. I think that was one of their "choose your own adventure" scenarios, where they had an out if he happened to discover that she didn't really live there. That's beside the point, though. I don't know if you've ever been around a gunshot (much less a few minutes of nonstop automatic gunfire), but unless they owned the whole damn neighborhood, and perhaps the one next to it, the police would have been notified. That's just one example, though. Take, say, the risk they ran while having the cab driver jet through every red light in town going full speed. Or, what if he would have successfully contacted the police himself. Or, like I said earlier, what if he would have cracked his head on the safety divider or a window in the taxi when it hit the water doing 60mph? I could go on and on. There were just too many things that no company would ever have done, or at the very least, been able to get away with (especially for as long as we're to believe they've been doing this).

Every side? Hell, they didn't even have that side covered. If he would've jumped about 15 feet to the left or right, he would've landed right in the middle of one of his friend's dinner tables. Again, we're made to believe that this company goes to extreme measures to make everything realistic (all the way down to explosive charges set in the fake apartment, to make it seem like the blanks are actual bullets penetrating the floor, walls, and windows), but that they'd just risk him being injured or killed in numerous scenarios? Or that they'd break numerous laws without ever worrying about police intervention?

Obvious and less interesting, perhaps...but logical, and I'll take a logical conclusion over an inconspicuous, intriguing one anyday. I like my movies to be entertaining, but I want them to be able to withstand the slightest bit of questioning, too.

Oh, I know why he tried to kill himself...and I don't doubt that he'd be relieved to find that his brother was still alive. However, the man was pushed to a breaking point. He was paranoid, borderline schizophrenic in that scene in the cafe. He was willing to take somebody's life, to kidnap a man in front of his own kids. He tried to end his own life. We step in when people have suicidal thoughts. This guy jumped off a fucking building. You don't just shrug all of that off and have a drink once somebody tells you that you're on candid camera. The things he went through, even though they turned out to be part of a game, would have seriously fucked with his head.

I know, and I liked this to an extent. I especially thought it was clever that to end it all, he had to jump off a building attempting to kill himself, just as his father did. He can finally understand what pushed his father to do what he did. It's clever, but it's just not realistic. If we're led to believe that his reactions to the situation are authentic...then he no longer has any humanistic characteristics that we can relate to. He did, throughout the whole picture. He reacted to scenarios in ways that you or I would. That's what made the movie so good. The ending, though, is just not at all authentic.

-JP

Now that would've been a cool ending!

The Game is one of the most absurd films I've ever seen.....and I loved every minute of it. You can't overanalyze it, people. It's a mindf-ck movie, pure and simple. It either works for you or it doesn't.

Case in point. I saw the movie when it played in theaters with a couple friends. We actually went to a sneak preview of Kiss the Girls(which did not impress me), but got to stay for free afterwards and watch The Game. I knew nothing about the movie going in aside from Michael Douglas being the star. And it blew me away. Especially when it got to the bit in Mexico. I thought the movie was gonna end with Nick Van Orton dying in that cabin and CRS making off with his money only for the things to get even more bizarre from that point.

One of my friends felt the same way I did. We left the theater buzzing about what we'd just experienced. My other friend? He walked out of the theater halfway through out of frustration to smoke a cigarette. He hated it.

Can't wait to see the P.O.S., half-assed so-called special edition DVD-18 the wunderkinds at Universal work up somewhere down the road...

Did someone say SE? ;)

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