The Game

I've gone back and forth on David Fincher, loving some of his movies completely, and just not caring at all for others. Still though, almost every movie he makes seems to be pretty buzzworthy. Alien 3, Seven, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network- these are movies that, love them or hate them, everyone who's seen them seems to have a strong opinion on. Here's one of his that pop culture seems to have left behind though- The Game. Who still talks about The Game? Does anyone feel like it's a classic, or was it a whole bunch of crap? Was it just not memorable? I had no idea, so I gave this a shot recently.

 

And yeah, it's decent. It's a pretty interesting concept- Nichlas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) is basically a less villainous version of Douglas' character Gordon Gekko in Wall Street but this time he's supposedly the good guy. His deadbeat brother Sean Penn gives him an odd gift for his birthday- a membership in Consumer Recreation Services, a vaguely-detailed company promising to give him an entertaining 'game', but refusing to detail what it will involve. Before long it's clear that the company is up to some shady shit- Nick returns home from CRS's office to find a weird life-size clown-doll left in a heap in his driveway, cameras installed in his living room, and the guys on the news is talking directly to him. Are they playing a game, as they said they are? Or is there more at stake here?

 

The movie jumps back and forth, seemingly a clear game at some points, and a ploy to steal Van Orton's fortune and ruin his life at others. It all wraps up with a bit of a twist ending, but nothing earth-shattering, like say, the one that ended Fincher's next movie, Fight Club. So all in all, I'd say The Game's place in history as one of Fincher's less-known movies seems justified- aside from a solid performance from Douglas and a well-done air of paranoia throughout, there's not much else here.