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FILM REVIEWS

'The Game' is a Winner
By LAWRENCE TOPPMAN
The Charlotte Observer

Most suspense movies are houses of cards: Blow just one puff of disbelief, and they fall to pieces. ``The Game'' is the Taj Mahal of the genre: vast, complex, beautiful to ponder, assembled with intricacy and precision. It would topple if you suspended your disbelief even once. But why would you want to?

My neighbor at the screening complained because there's no twist ending. He's right: There's only one place the story can go, and it goes there with the unswerving speed of a homing pigeon. But that was true of ``Seven,'' and most people swallowed that tale easily.

The comparison is intentional. Director David Fincher, who has found his feet after the murky ``Alien³,'' wove an obscure, menacing spell in the disturbing ``Seven.'' He does that better in ``The Game,'' provoking fear and uncertainty without the brutality or perversion.

The threat of violence hangs over bored tycoon Nicholas Van Orton, who sets the plot in motion by accepting his millionaire brother's birthday present. Black sheep Conrad arranges for sibling Nicky to play a ``game'' tailored especially to him by a shadowy entertainment company known as CRS.

Van Orton idly agrees to a physical and psychological profile by CRS. He doesn't feel much like playing, until he finds what looks like a corpse in his driveway. It turns out to be a circus clown, and in its mouth he finds a key that unlocks -- well, I won't tell.

Suffice to say that his life becomes a blur of conspiracies, duplicity, apparent blackmail and physical threats. Is the ``game'' a menace to his life and sanity, or a way to fleece him of money?

And who's behind it? His aptly named brother Con? Nicholas' apparently supportive ex-wife? The elderly publisher Nicholas is forcing out of business? The attractive waitress who was paid to spill drinks on Nicholas at a key moment, and who dogs him after that?

There's one key problem: If Nicholas doesn't always walk through a certain door or touch a certain gun, the whole plot unravels. But if you can accept that he does -- or that the game players have backup provisions if he doesn't -- you can buy the concept.

The script by John Brancato and Michael Ferris keeps you curious; their work for the muddled ``The Net'' didn't suggest they could juggle suspense with such dexterity. They've come up with snappy lines: When Nicholas is asked, ``Is that a promise?,'' he replies, ``I'm sorry, I'm not aware of that term.''

Few actors could deliver that quietly cruel dialogue with the crisp toughness of Michael Douglas. He seems to be reprising his Oscar-winning role as Gordon Gekko in ``Wall Street,'' 10 years down the road. Nicholas' fire has gone out, but his acquisitiveness and ruthlessness remain intact.

``The Game'' is almost a one-man show, though he gets adequate support from Sean Penn (in the underwritten role of Con), Deborah Kara Unger as the waitress and James Rebhorn as the genially vague representative of CRS.

Yet this is mostly a director's accomplishment. Fincher sustains suspense coolly, with the least possible violence. (The first blood isn't drawn until an hour has passed, and then only when Nicholas accidentally cuts his hand.) He delays payoffs as long as possible, then delivers them with punch.

He toys with the audience, most rewarding those who pay the most attention. Listen for the Muzak tinkling when Nicholas breaks into CRS headquarters; it's ``Goin' Out of My Head.'' Look for wall graffiti that reads ``clave'' -- which is Spanish for ``a key to a code.''

I'd say the whole film is a tribute to the magical quality of movie-making, in much the same vein as ``The Stunt Man.'' Just as the characters in ``The Game'' manipulate reality for Nicholas, Fincher and the writers manipulate it for us. The more we sit back and let them have their way, the more exciting it will be to play along.

 

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