The Game (1997)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

David Fincher

Writers (WGA):

John D. Brancato (written by) &
Michael Ferris (written by)

Release Date:

12 September 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Players Wanted.

Plot:

Wealthy financier Nicholas Van Orton gets a strange birthday present from wayward brother Conrad: a live-action game that consumes his life.

Plot Keywords:

Birthday | Brother | Suicide | Game | White Rabbit

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Michael Douglas	...	Nicholas Van Orton
Sean Penn	...	Conrad Van Orton
Deborah Kara Unger	...	Christine
James Rebhorn	...	Jim Feingold
Peter Donat	...	Samuel Sutherland
Carroll Baker	...	Ilsa
Anna Katarina	...	Elizabeth
Armin Mueller-Stahl	...	Anson Baer
Charles Martinet	...	Nicholas' Father
Scott Hunter McGuire	...	Young Nicholas
Florentine Mocanu	...	Nicholas' Mother
Elizabeth Dennehy	...	Maria
Caroline Barclay	...	Maggie
Daniel Schorr	...	Himself
John Aprea	...	Power Executive

MPAA:

Rated R for language, and for some violence and sexuality.

Runtime:

128 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Cantonese | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Peru:14 | Iceland:12 | USA:R (certificate #35106) | Finland:K-12 | Netherlands:16 | Spain:13 | Brazil:12 | Philippines:PG-13 | Australia:M | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Germany:12 (w) | Hong Kong:IIB | Ireland:15 | Mexico:B | Netherlands:12 (TV rating) | New Zealand:M | Norway:15 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

1 Bush Street, San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Polygram Filmed Entertainment

Trivia:

Nicholas Van Orton enters his suite at the Hotel Nikko and we can see that is the same place from movie 'True Lies (1994)' where Jamie Lee Curtis/'Helen Tasker' danced for her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger/'Harry Tasker'.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Nicholas Van Orton first visits CRS, one of the documents that flashes by on the computer screen is a birth certificate. A freeze-frame reveals the name to be "James Darrell Edwards III" and the birth date to be "October 19, 1969" in Manhattan - this is the same birth certificate for Will Smith's character in Men in Black (1997) that Tommy Lee Jones deletes when Edwards joins the Men in Black. They just removed the baby's footprints and centered the text on the bottom half of the document. Another document is a "department" ID and also lists "James D. Edwards" as a "Detective".

Quotes:

Nicholas: What's that?
Conrad: [signs document] This... is... the bill.
Nicholas: Do you want to split it?
Conrad: [exhales] Oh God yes! I'll take some of that...
[shows Nicholas enormous number at bottom of receipt]
Nicholas: [shocked look] Oh my God...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "How I Met Your Mother: Little Boys (#3.4)" (2007)

Soundtrack:

Elevator Song

Great, but could have been better

David Fincher is almost always reliable to deliver some good thrills. Se7en is probably the best thriller I've ever seen, Panic Room is pretty exciting and I've heard a lot of good things about Fight Club. However, this one stands out, at least from Panic Room and Se7en, since pretty much nothing in this movie is what it seems. It keeps you on the edge of your seat for most of the action scenes, and it keeps you wondering, up until the very last minute, what the hell is going on. Then you find out. I'm not saying the ending was downright bad, but it could definitely have used some improvement. It could have been worse, but it could also have been so much better. The end just seems to ruin a lot of the buildup of the rest of the film. Anyway, the plot is very good, a man who has everything, but isn't completely satisfied with his life, gets a chance to have some "fun". He takes it, and his life is changed forever. The acting is all good. The characters are well-written and credible. Actually, everything but the ending is top notch. The ending is the one reason that this movie doesn't get, at least, a 9. It just ruins so much of the movie, especially because the moment the definite end of the movie is reached, it feels empty. Up until that moment, you feel like you were watching a work of art, and then just before it ends in the same way that the rest of it has been, it cuts to some lame excuse for everything that happened in the movie up to that point, rather than a good explanation. I really wish they had made the ending better. Overall, a pretty good thriller, that could have been a masterpiece. I recommend this to fans of Fincher's other work, and fans of psychological thrillers altogether. 8/10