This 1997 thriller is fairly entertaining nonsense if all you're looking for is 128 minutes of diversion. But if you'd like something more from David Fincher, the director of Seven, don't get your hopes up.
The Game
What do you get for the man who has everything...?
1997 · 2h 9m · R
Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Directed by
David Fincher
Overview
In honor of his birthday, San Francisco banker Nicholas Van Orton, a financial genius and a cold-hearted loner, receives an unusual present from his younger brother, Conrad: a gift certificate to play a unique kind of game. In nary a nanosecond, Nicholas finds himself consumed by a dangerous set of ever-changing rules, unable to distinguish where the charade ends and reality begins.
Director and cast
- David Fincher Director
- Michael Douglas as Nicholas Van Orton
- Sean Penn as Conrad Van Orton
- Deborah Kara Unger as Christine
- James Rebhorn as Jim Feingold
- Peter Donat as Samuel Sutherland
- Spike Jonze as Airbag EMT Beltran
- Armin Mueller-Stahl as Anson Baer
- Carroll Baker as Ilsa
- Anna Katarina as Elizabeth
- Charles Martinet as Nicholas' Father
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Regardless of how far one chooses to buy into The Game -- and the ending ambiguously suggests that it could go on and on -- there is no doubt as to Fincher's staggering expertise as a director and his almost clinical sense of precision.
The film's 'message' about complacency transformed by chaos and uncertainty is hackneyed...
The picture provides Douglas with one of his best roles. If he doesn't quite reach the bizarre heights he achieved in Falling Down, The Game makes its own demands.
A crowd-pleasing pip most of the way.
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