The Game
(1997/HD-DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B Extras: D Film: B-
No actor
had taken more risks in his roles at the time in big commercial filmmaking than
Michael Douglas, so when he signed on to do a film with David Fincher,
expectation were high for The Game
when it arrived in 1997. People were
still talking about Alien3 (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) and Se7en
was a big hit that was also uncompromising in its darkness. The film was made by the new studio PolyGram
Records had set up after years of co-producing hits with other companies.
Douglas
plays Nicholas Van Orton, a very wealthy, powerful man who is also a control
freak and not always nice. He does not
even have time for his brother (Sean Penn) despite the fact that he cares for
him and they are on good terms. The
terms are so good, that his brother gets Nick a gift that he thinks will make
his year for his birthday. Nick looks
into it and in the fashion of the brilliant classic The Parallax View, gives very personal information to start what is
supposed to be a “game” but moves into much more.
The first
thing the John Brancato/Michael Ferris screenplay plays on is the idea of
people wanting to take on a challenge, which is not necessarily a good thing,
but some people cannot resist. Even
though he is not always nice and is playing a intertextual variant of his role
in Wall Street, he is a star the
audience likes and comes to see, so that offers an odd safety in watching at
first; a fascination in the viewing.
Another
take is that if this is a guy who was so tough that he could become rich and
powerful, what edge does he have to survive this challenge? If he has one, has he lost it? Will it return? So begins the film, but the challenges become
those of life and earth stakes, though he often finds out many of the
situations are staged and phony.
Suddenly, the whole city is plotted out and booby-trapped in situation
where he could easily be killed. When he
tries to find a way out to stop or pause the events, he is not aware to what
extent this company has rigged his every turn.
Now those
who have seen it, and this does not ruin anything, know this otherwise great
film has a stupid ending that never worked, never will, is a copout and if you
think about it does not add up. Prior to
this, though, there are issues to consider.
Is his brother doing this to steal his wealth? No matter who big the “game” and how many are
willing confederate participants that he cannot trust (and you could do a
separate essay about the nature of conspiracy in all this) that the only way
they could be so willing is to be paid off officially as employees of the
company and/or recipients of the spoils if they can bankrupt and/or destroy
Nick.
Immediately
at that point, a mature individual would draw the line and conclude the very
worse, but Nick’s sudden ability to want to play in itself is “making nice” and
ironically makes him vulnerable since that is the position he starts in. So one then needs to consider the idea of
individuality and though he is clearly not always nice as a point the film
makes explicit, Nick is still entitled to be who he wants and if he has earned
what he has earned fair and square, then he owes apologies to no one. Not even his brother. That this could happen to him if he was the
nicest guy in cinema history but would be the same target because of his money
and isolation, not because of his character.
Douglas’ dual likeability while plays a flawed guy makes him perfect for
this role.
The film
can then be read as 1) a warning to the individual that they deserve to be
endangered no matter what, 2) that mass individual wealth will eventually be
endangered by multi-national corporations as Nicolas Roeg’s underrated Eureka (1980) states despite being set
decades earlier, 3) that a world this rotten does not deserve to live if
everyone around is rotten (sick world versus unwell person is “healthy” world
as Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby
suggests) and 4) the world ends when corporations and greed supersede the
individual and individual rights.
That also
speaks of the evils of corporations playing god (especially when those
companies and government do such in the name of an unrecognizable god, though
the film never does or needs to address that) and all these issues are
otherwise implied throughout… unless you approach this like an airhead thinking
it is a joke, something that has made any corporate evil here (or anywhere)
possible to begin with.
Yes, it
is possible a company with enough people could make this happen, especially
after this film with so much more multi-media and people addicted to things
like cellphones. Until the end, this
becomes an action thriller about something, which is why people still talk
about it and Robin Wood is correct to note (in his great book Hollywood From Vietnam To Reagan… And
Beyond, reviewed elsewhere on this site) that this film is a very rare film
that actually does revisit real Film Noir, the most abused term cinematic
illiterates throw around when a film is dark and they want to trivialize it. Note Deborah Kara Unger, playing a revised
version of the femme fatale, the figure of downfall in original Noirs (1941 –
1958) deconstructed as a sexist delusion in key Neo Noirs of the 1970s and
early 1980s, back now as another feasible participant. With a certain unisex aesthetic kicking in
since the early 1980s, she is back appropriately as an ambiguous figure beyond
more than just if she is good and evil (read virgin/whore complex).
Of
course, there are those who will say this is reading too much into the film,
but it is there and that is the kind of attitude that gets Douglas’ Van Orton
trapped in this web to begin with. It
looks like he is not the only one.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 image is sadly pushing an old, problematic, flawed and obviously
unsupervised-by-the-creators master that is responsible for all the previous
substandard transfers of this film on home video, save the 12” Criterion
Collection LaserDisc and this was originally issued on PolyGram Home
Video. The film was nicely shot in Super
35mm by Harry Savides and in 35mm prints looked great. Unfortunately, this HD-DVD is more like
watching the HD-DVD of Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus
(1960, also reviewed on the site and from Universal) where the disc is barely
better than a standard DVD.
The sound
is also an issue, originally released in theaters in Dolby Digital and DTS,
this disc only offers a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 track that sounds somewhat
second generation as compared to the original mix. Diehard fans know a 12” DTS LaserDisc was
issued of the film which remains the best sound version on the market and DTS
should have been an option here. Also,
Fincher’s films always have exceptional sound mixes, which you can even hear
here. Howard Shore delivers an
interesting score to boot. Maybe when
they do a special edition of the film, we’ll get the criterion extras, the DTS
and an HD transfer worthy of the amazing shoot, directing and production design
the film offers.
Except
for a hazy trailer and faux announcement of a DVD-Video side when this was
almost issued as a Combo disc, there are no extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
