Surviving the Game

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Surving The Game
Surviving the Game DVD cover
Directed by	Ernest R. Dickerson
Produced by	Fred C. Caruso
Written by	Eric Bernt
Starring	Ice-T Rutger Hauer Gary Busey
Music by	Stewart Copeland
Cinematography	Bojan Bazelli
Editing by	Samuel D. Pollard
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	April 15, 1994
Running time	96 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$7,400,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue	$7,690,013 (USA) (sub-total)
IMDb profile

Surviving The Game is a 1994 action film directed by Ernest R. Dickerson, starring Ice-T, Rutger Hauer and Gary Busey. It is loosely based on the short story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell.

[edit] Plot details

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Jack Mason (Ice-T) is a homeless man from Seattle who loses his only friends - a fellow homeless man and his dog - on the same day. Dejected, he's about to take his own life when a soup kitchen worker, Walter Cole (Charles S. Dutton) saves him and refers him to a priest Father Thomas Burns (Hauer). Burns offers him a job as a hunting guide, after Mason is able to prove his fitness by running on a treadmill for thirty minutes. He is promised a payment of $500 a week, starting early the next morning, to be picked up from his hotel by Burns, Mason is understandably uncomfortable over the whole prospect of hunting animals, but the offer of money proves too tempting to turn down.

Flying to a remote cabin in the Pacific Northwest surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods, Mason meets the rest of the hunting party, including the founder of the hunt, the psychotic psychiatrist (who specialises in evaluating the sanities of CIA agents) Doc Hawkins (played by Gary Busey), all of whom payed $25,000 for the privilege of being there. Hawkin's mental instability (ironic, given that he himself is a psychiatrist) is shown in a powerful (and typically Busey) monologue in which he tells the story of his "birthmark." Revolving around a childhood incident being made by his father to mortal combat with the family dog, (who'd Doc had raised as a puppy). The other hunters include Cole (who picks the "game" for the hunt), a bereaved embittered lawyer John Griffin (who's daughter was raped and murdered by a destitute), Wolfe Sr., a wealthy man from Wall Street, and his son, Derek Wolfe Jr., who is at first ignorant of the true purposes of the hunt. After a hearty meal of roast pig (which was brought in alive, and Jack was made to see being butchered) and $450 bottles of wine, Mason goes to sleep thinking he better get some rest for the next days hunt. That morning he is awoken by Cole in combat gear, pointing a gun in his face. He is then told that: "We like to play a game. It begins now. We are the hunters and you are the hunted(if he makes it civilization he goes free)." The psychotic hunters then give Mason time to escape on foot for as long as it takes them to eat a nice leisurely breakfast. After an initial hesitation (in which John spits on him), Burns threatens to shoot Mason if he does not try to run away, and Mason bolts for the woods unarmed (regretting his smoking habit) while the others eventually pursue him on All-terrain vehicles and a complete arsenal of semi-automatic weapons.

Mason eventually doubles back to the original cabin to deceive the hunters (which suprises them, particularly an impressed Cole, since no one else ever did that before), where he finds a shelf of glass jars in a back room, each of them filled with a head of a previously hunted homeless man, showing how long the game has been going on (one we'd seen in the pre-opening being hunted down and impaled with a crossbow bolt). He dowses the rooms in gasoline and sets the cabin alight just as the others arrive back. He manages to kill Doc Hawkins (who had strayed from the pack and was lurking in the cabin) with his bare hands by throwing him through a window straight into the blazing room of the burning cabin. Even though he still has no weapons, now neither do any of the pursues have any more ammunition and finds a way back out to the woods to plan his move. Mason then plants lit cigarettes in the trees to split the hunting party and lead them to search on foot (Cole being further congratulated on choosing a much more worthy foe for the others). With the hunters isolated he jumps from a cliff face and lands onto John Griffin, knocking him senseless. He drags him into a cave, ties him up and overnight the men bond physically, as John reveals that his loss has meant he no longer cares about his life anymore...only the hunt which might one day bring him a chance to face his offspring's life taker. Mason reveals the story about the death of his family in a apartment building fire, which he managed. In the morning, lawyer John Griffin is awoken by the others and Mason is no where to be found. As they head back to the bikes, Griffin, after seeing the error in his ways of human hunting, is murdered by Cole, who shoots him right between the eyes with a .357 Magnum. Burns and Cole then laugh about how no one can return without finishing the job. It is also noteworthy that Derek constantly objects to the practice and screams at the sight of the murder so Burns punches him in the gut which makes it all go away. In the next scene though Derek dies by falling off a tree suspended over a gorge (after being pelted with rocks by Mason), invoking a slow-motion and dramatized "Nooo!!!" by his father, Wolfe Sr. Mason then makes a run for it and tries to escape on one of their bikes. Cole tries to pursue him on a four-wheeler, but when he starts the engine the vehicle explodes. Mason, an experienced mechanic, had put the wire from the starter motor into the fuel tank. Cole lays there with his bloody nubs kicking, talking about how "next time we should bring the girls." Burns places his two fingers deep into his neck collapses Cole's windpipe, (Cole oddly directing Burn's hand).

This leaves Wolf Sr. and Burns. As day breaks Mason kills Wolf with his bare hands after he emptied an entire clip from his Beretta and failed to hit anything, while Mason bashes his head against a cliff wall. Mason hears the sound of a Jet engine starting up and makes a run for the runway. Burns is waiting there to ambush him and shoots the plane that he had planted on the runway and it explodes. Burns takes off in another airplane and flies away, leaving Mason alone amongst the plane's debris. Three days later, back in the city, Burns has dyed his hair and arranged a fake passport and plans to leave the country. Virginia Wolf, wife and mother of the Wolf hunters, leaves a message on the answering machine stating how she hasn't heard from them and is beginning to worry. Burns leaves without contacting her, encoutering a homless woman who he berrates. He gets to his car, a 4WD Cherokee, but it doesn't start. He is then spooked by noises in the night, so retrieves a gun from a suitcase. He gets to his motorbike when Mason confronts him in an alley. A fight ensues and Mason overpowers Burns and takes his weapon forcing him to pray, seen as he's dressed for the occasion. Satisfied, Mason walks away and leaves behind the rifle, which Burns picks up, loads and aims at Mason - however, Mason, anticipating this action, clogged the front of the barrel (with amongst other things cigarettes). As Burns pulls the trigger it backfires, splitting the barrel and front compartment of the gun, killing Burns instantly (as mason remmbers the advice his late friend gave him...always check a gun's barrel).