The Game (film)

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This article is about the 1997 film. For the 1970 film, see The Games (film).
The Game

Promotional poster
Directed by David Fincher
Produced by Cean Chaffin
Steve Golin
Written by John Brancato
Michael Ferris
Starring Michael Douglas
Sean Penn
Armin Mueller-Stahl
Deborah Kara Unger
James Rebhorn
Peter Donat
Music by Howard Shore
Cinematography Harris Savides
Editing by James Haygood
Distributed by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
Buena Vista International (Scandinavia)
Release date(s) September 12, 1997 (U.S.)
Running time 135 minutes
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Budget USD $50,000,000 (estimate)[1]
Gross revenue USD $109,423,648 (worldwide)[2]
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Game is a 1997 American psychological thriller film directed by David Fincher, produced by Polygram and starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. It tells the story of an investment banker who is given a mysterious gift: participation in a game that integrates in strange ways with his life. As the lines between the banker'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 a 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 film was well received by critics in spite of middling box-office returns compared to the success of Fincher's previous film, Se7en.

The Game was #44 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.[3]

Contents

[edit] Cast

[edit] Plot

Nicholas Van Orton (Douglas) is a successful, extremely wealthy businessman, but his success has come at the cost of his personal life. He is estranged from his ex-wife and goes about life in a cold, detached manner and seems incapable of expressing emotion or caring for anyone or anything else.

On Nicholas' 48th birthday, his younger brother Conrad (Penn) presents him with an unusual gift -- a game offered by a company called Consumer Recreation Services -- promising that it will change Nicholas' life. (The idea of Consumer Recreation Services seems to be lifted directly from the G. K. Chesterton story "The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown"). 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 psychological test and a physical one, Nicholas is informed that The Game's company has rejected him. However, he soon discovers this is false. The Game has not only begun but focuses on a key moment of Nicholas's life when, as a child, he witnessed his father committing suicide by leaping off the roof of their family home, the same home Nicholas lives in now, on his 48th birthday, the same one Nicholas is now "celebrating."

Evidence mounts that The Game is actually an elaborate and dangerous scheme. Each time Nicholas thinks he has uncovered the truth, he finds a new layer of complexity to it. The game 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 of Consumer Recreation Services, known as Christine (Unger), 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 symbolic 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 lives.

Alienated from his friends and his trusted lawyer, Nicholas comes to a realization about his life and makes peace with his ex-wife, who has happily remarried and is about to give birth to her second child. But he becomes increasingly desperate and retrieves a hidden handgun from his home, whereupon he heads directly into the offices of The Game and takes one of the staff hostage.

On the roof of the company's skyscraper, Nicholas demands answers. Christine appears surprised by the gun, telling Nicholas anxiously that The Game's company thought it had replaced any real firearms Nicholas could access with fakes. She insists that the whole thing is just a hoax and that his friends and family are waiting on the other side of the door, ready to celebrate his birthday. As the door opens, surprising Nicholas, he fires without looking, only to reveal that he has shot his brother, who is holding a bottle of champagne and dressed in a tuxedo to celebrate Nicholas' birthday and the successful conclusion of The Game.

Stricken with remorse, Nicholas leaps off the skyscraper's roof. He crashes through a glass ceiling. However, he lands safely on an airbag placed there for just that reason. There he finds his family and friends awaiting his arrival and The Game is revealed to have just been a game after all. The accounts have not been drained, the gun was indeed replaced with one firing blanks, and his brother is very much alive. As they embrace, Conrad confesses that he arranged The Game as a way to shake his brother back to reality and help him to enjoy life.

As a party is in full swing, Nicholas meets several of the guests who were operatives in the game in various guises. When he finds out that Christine is about to depart for the night, Nicholas proceeds to run outside and strike up a conversation with her. The Game appears to be finally over, but he can't be sure.

[edit] Production

According to David Fincher, there were three primary influences on The Game. Michael Douglas' character was a "fashionable, good-looking Scrooge, lured into a Mission: Impossible situation with a steroid shot in the thigh from The Sting."[4] He said in an interview that his movie differs from others of that kind because "movies usually make a pact with the audience that says: we're going to play it straight. What we show you is going to add up. But we don't do that. In that respect, it's about movies and how movies dole out information."[5]

For the scene where Nicholas Van Orton's taxi drives in the San Francisco Bay, the close-up with Douglas was filmed on a soundstage that contained a large tank of water.[6] The actor was in a small compartment that was designed to resemble the backseat of a taxi with three cameras capturing the action.

[edit] Locations

The movie was filmed primarily in San Francisco, using Hotel Nikko. 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.

Nicholas's mansion was actually the historic Filoli Mansion, 25 miles south of San Francisco in Woodside, California. The plain gravel forecourt of the mansion was made to look more like a wrap-around driveway by the addition of the fountain, which was constructed of lightweight foam. The interior shots of the kitchen were made in the original time-worn kitchen, which is displayed on tours but no longer used. The kitchen was in a failing state of repair, so very dim lighting was used in the kitchen scenes to hide this. The scenes in which the walls were defaced with graffiti was done by tacking up lightweight graffiti-painted foamcore boards over the wood paneling.

[edit] Response

The Game opened to fairly positive reviews, and grossed $48 million domestically and $61 million overseas.[2] As of July 2007, It ranks 78% 'Fresh' at Rotten Tomatoes, with 27 counted reviews.[7] Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, praising the dialogue and casting of Michael Douglas.[8] In his review for the Boston Globe, Jay Carr wrote, "The Game doesn't pretend to be more than a deftly fabricated construct, but it will keep you guessing and then outguess you and leave you feeling dazzled as opposed to dazed."[9] Janet Maslin wrote in her New York Times review, "Mr. Fincher, like Michael Douglas in the film's leading role, does show real finesse in playing to the paranoia of these times."[10] The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle wrote, "At times The Game is frustrating to watch, but that's just a measure of how well Fincher succeeds in putting us in his hero's shoes."

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Box office / business for The Game (1997). Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-07-09.
  2. ^ a b The Game (1997). Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2007-07-09.
  3. ^ The 100 Scariest Movie Moments, bravotv.com.
  4. ^ Arnold, Gary. "Director Fincher Learns More About Game of Making Movies", Washington Times, September 14, 1997. 
  5. ^ Gilbey, Ryan. "Precocious Producer who gets a thrill from tripping people up", The Independent, October 10, 1997. 
  6. ^ Farber, Stephen. "A Meeting of Tough Minds in Hollywood", New York Times, August 31, 1997. 
  7. ^ The Game. Retrieved on 2007-11-02.
  8. ^ Ebert, Roger. "The Game (R)", September 19, 1997. Retrieved on 2007-07-09. 
  9. ^ Carr, Jay. "Dark, Dazzling Game Doesn't Play by the Rules", Boston Globe, September 12, 1997. 
  10. ^ Maslin, Janet. "Terrifying Tricks That Make a Big Man Little", New York Times, September 12, 1997. 

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Films directed by David Fincher

Alien 3 (1992) • Se7en (1995) • The Game (1997) • Fight Club (1999) • Panic Room (2002) • Zodiac (2007) • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)