The Game

 

A GAMER’S VIEW OF THE MOVIES

by Donald J. Bingle

The Game

This month’s review just has to be about The Game, the heavily-promoted mystery/thriller starring Michael Douglas. After all, the name just about screams for review by a gamer and, as Michael Douglas’ character, Nicholas VanOorten, says early in the film, the whole thing sounds "like a lot of that fantasy roleplaying nonsense".

Now, I am no Michael Douglas fan (at least not since Romancing the Stone, his last good movie), mostly because he seems to have used his money to produce movies which cast him as a romantic lead irresistible to all women—sorry, that became non-plausible some time in the 1980s. I was pleased with his role here, however, because he plays a crotchety and uptight middle-aged rich guy, which he does pretty well, maybe because it’s not much of a stretch.

The premise of the movie (and I’m giving less away here than the promos do) is that Nicholas has been given a gift of a game to play that will interact with his normal life. He doesn’t know what it is, when it will start, what the objective is, or when it will end (gee, it sounds suspiciously like a campaign), only that it is run by an outfit called Consumer Recreation Services. At first he is intrigued by the game, but it quickly turns into something he wants to get out of as soon as possible.

The coolest things about the movie from a gamer’s point of view are basically threefold. First, figuring out who and what are part of the game and who and what are not—that’s what the film is really about for most viewers and it reaches a high point in a brief scene with Nicholas and a bottle of Evian. Second, watching the people who are part of the game adapt the game to Nicholas’ actions and reactions, by ad libbing, creating alternative story lines, etc.—this is what a good gamemaster has to do all the time (except he or she does it for real, not based on ad libs which are scripted in advance by the scriptwriter). Third, pretending that you are playing the game and deciding what you would and would not do at this juncture—call it silent roleplaying while watching the movie if you like. This is particularly interesting when the game becomes truly sinister and threatening to Nicholas’ real life—would you continue to play, call the cops, confide in someone as to what is happening, or what? Like the classic slasher/horror movies, there are plenty of moments when you are sure you would not do something as stupid as the main character, but he does have a few moments of cleverness himself. Careful observers will also be able to pick up on a few clues which appear, but go unnoticed by Nicholas and, quite frankly, by most of the audience. My spouse and I were the only ones to laugh out loud a couple of times, because we had noticed some things that had not hit the rest of the audience over the head. I like it a lot when a movie is extragavant enough in its content to let that happen.

Some nagging details that detract? Sure. Two 555 phone numbers. A game too extravagant to be believed (although they at least do deal with the fact that it would cost a fortune). Some stuff with cellular phones that I suspect my phone technical friends would say simply does not and can not work the way they say it does. The fact that the game surely violates a bunch of laws and would never work in the real world for liability reasons (although they at least try to deal with this issue, too).

All in all, a solid, good movie, as long as you don’t let anyone else (including the movie promos) spoil the fun by giving too much of the plot away. And, heck, if enough people see it, maybe the next time someone asks you what your gaming hobby is all about, you can tell them that it’s just like the stuff Consumer Recreation Services does in the movie. It won’t be true, but it may really make the person who asked wonder and maybe even worry.

Copyright 1998 Donald J. Bingle