The Game (film)

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The Game

Directed by	David Fincher
Produced by	Cean Chaffin, Steve Golin
Written by	John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris
Starring	Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger, James Rebhorn, Peter Donat, Carroll Baker, Anna Katarina
Music by	Howard Shore
Distributed by	Polygram Films
Release date(s)	September 12, 1997
Running time	135 min.
Language	English
Budget	$48 million[1]
IMDb profile

The Game is a 1997 psychological thriller directed by David Fincher, which tells the story of a wealthy businessman who is gifted with prepaid access to a game that integrates in strange ways with his life. As the lines between the businessman's real life and the game become more and more uncertain there are hints of a larger conspiracy.

The game in the movie can be viewed as sort of alternate reality game with a large live action role-playing game component. Participants in real life versions of alternate reality games and live action role-playing games find the movie interesting and a source of inspiration for this reason. (See also The Game (treasure hunt) for a real-life equivalent to the fictional events in the film.)

The movie's plot has also been interpreted as an updating of Dickens' A Christmas Carol: Michael Douglas' wealthy Scrooge-like character has an encounter with someone from his past (Sean Penn, in the Jacob Marley-Spirit of Christmas Past role), which triggers a series of adventures that challenge the protagonist's worldview.

1 Cast
2 Plot summary
3 Locations
4 See also
5 External links
- 5.1 Reviews

[edit] Cast

Michael Douglas - Nicholas Van Orton
Sean Penn - Conrad Van Orton
Deborah Kara Unger - Christine
James Rebhorn - Jim Feingold
Peter Donat - Samuel Sutherland
Carroll Baker - Ilsa
Anna Katerina - Elizabeth (as Anna Katarina)
Armin Mueller-Stahl - Anson Baer
Charles Martinet - Nicholas' Father
Scott Hunter McGuire - Young Nicholas
Florentine Mocanu - Nicholas' Mother
Elizabeth Dennehy - Maria
Caroline Barclay - Maggie
Daniel Schorr - Himself
John Aprea - Power Executive

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Game is, in essence, a redemption fable which explores the theme of appearance-vs-reality. In style & structure, it is strongly reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode. The main character, Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) is a successful businessman, but his success has come at the cost of his family life; when the movie opens he is divorced and is estranged from his wife.

On Nicholas' forty-eighth birthday, his younger brother Conrad (Sean Penn) presents him with an unusual gift -- a prepaid game offered by a company called Consumer Recreation Services -- promising that it will change Nicholas' life. The nature of the game is unclear at first, but it appears to be a sort of live action role-playing game that integrates directly into the player's real life. After taking a full day test and physical, Nicholas is informed that the game company cannot serve him. However, Nicholas soon discovers that this is false and the game has begun. The game focuses on a key moment of Nicholas' life when, as a child, he witnessed his father committing suicide by leaping off their family home, the same home Nicholas lives in; significantly Nicholas' father took his life on his 48th birthday -- the same age Nicholas is now.

As the movie progresses, evidence mounts that the game is actually an elaborate scheme, but each time Nicholas thinks he has uncovered the truth, he finds that a new layer of complexity has been revealed and that his previous assumptions were false. The Game quickly escalates into a no-holds-barred assault on everything Nicholas values, and his carefully ordered life and business empire rapidly disintegrate around him as The Game takes control. An employee at first assists him in escaping from the clutches of the CRS operatives, but after a series of narrow escapes and repeated attempts on his life, Nicholas is captured, transported to Mexico and subjected to a terrifying premature burial, all while having his bank accounts drained by the employee who was pretending to help him. The Game is now revealed to be an elaborate scam to relieve the power elite of their property and their life.

Alienated from his friends and his trusted lawyer, Nicholas soon becomes desperate and retrieves a hidden handgun from his home, whereupon he heads directly into the offices of the game company and takes one of the staff hostage. The movie comes to a climax on the roof of the game company's skyscraper. A jumpy Nicholas demands answers. The employee appears surprised by the gun, telling Nicholas that the game company thought they had replaced any real firearms Nicholas could access with fakes. A door opens, surprising Nicholas and he fires without looking, only to reveal that he has shot his brother holding a bottle of champagne dressed for his birthday celebration. Stricken with remorse, Nicholas leaps off the skyscraper and crashes through a glass ceiling, but he lands safely in an airbag. There he finds his family and friends awaiting his arrival and the game is revealed to have just been a game. The accounts have not been drained, the gun was replaced with one firing blanks, and his brother is alive.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Locations

The movie was filmed primarily in San Francisco, including Hotel Nikko and the Filoli Gardens and House (Woodside). The use of San Francisco as the primary locale was clearly a deliberate choice by Fincher; the city was of great significance in Michael Douglas' own career - he rose to fame as the co-star (with Karl Malden) of the popular 1970s police series The Streets of San Francisco, and also starred in the San Francisco-based hit thriller Basic Instinct.