The Michael Douglas Fan Page
FILM REVIEWS
"The Game" Makes its Own Rules and Doesn't Hesitate to Change Them
By Bob Polunsky
BP Movie Reviews
Sept. 12, 1997
It's a nailbiter with Michael Douglas as a hyper business
tycoon who doesn't have time for people. His playboy brother,
Sean Penn, surprises him with a birthday present for his 48th
birthday: A gift certificate to the Consumer Recreation Service,
a company that specializes in custom-designed games that change
people's lives around.
In no time at all Michael is sucked into the game's
mysterious obstacle course. It begins when he finds a plastic
clown dressed in men's clothing on his driveway. At first he
thinks it's a dead man. He remembers seeing his father's dead
body in this same spot when he had jumped off the roof years
before.
He takes the clown inside his palatial home while he watches
Daniel Schorr on a TV newscast. All of sudden, Schorr's TV image
calls Michael by name and talks to him. Could this be part of the
"game?" Indeed it is, and it's only the first dumbfounding
experience Michael will experience.
The movie has enough holes to trp most movie stars, but they
don't stop Michael Douglas from jumping from one conclusion to
another and hopping from one obstacle to another in an effort to
find out who-is-doing-all-this-to-him-and-why.
Even though the plot doesn't make much sense, you won't be
able to turn away. It's fascinating to watch, especially if you
put yourself in Michael Douglas' shoes. He's so charismatic,
you'll want to do just that whether you agree with his attitudes
and actions or not. Oddball camera angles, diffuse lighting and
car chases up and down the hills of San Francisco add to the
excitement.
Douglas is in virtually every scene. All the others,
including Sean Penn, have comparatively little screen time. The
ending is abrupt and doesn't cover all bases but gives you
something to think about.
The movie also has a few cynical laughs about the way Fate
leads people around by the nose. It's put in perspective in a
party scene after Michael Douglas' character found himself inside
a coffin and had to burrow his way out to reach civilization.
Another character gives him a T-shirt that says, "I was drugged
and left for dead in Mexico and all I have to show for it is this
T-shirt."
That's the plot in a nutshell, and it wouldn't work without
Michael Douglas. With him, it's one of the most exciting movies
of the year thus far.
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