Nice effects though.

Better Late Then Never

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Today I dug out the video (not DVD) collection as a kind of challenge to myself, had my attention drawn to the 1997 movie "The Game" from David Fincher (who has since gone on to several other good things), and gave the cassette a whirl through the machine for only the second time in its existence.Doubtless we've got used to Michael Douglas doing this kind of thing but here in "The Game" he is in - shall we say - his "middle period", and the film very largely hangs on what he can bring to it - which is plenty. His character Nicholas Van Orton goes a little past cliche, which is nice. Although he's an investment banker (which goes without saying, I guess), and although he's doubtless good at what he does, there's actually a good dose of clumsiness, fear and self-doubt - even self-loathing - just below the surface here, as well as plenty of loneliness right on the surface; yet when things go off the rails (as they regularly do in a Michael Douglas film) he's not THAT effective, but actually a bit of stumblebum.This does much to endear him to us.The plot is well into the realms of fantasy - and you'd do VERY well to ignore the more-thoughtful morality side - but somehow it's darned good - even 21 years down the line. Carried out with conviction and seeking out what are (apparently) a host of great San Francisco locations most (though crucially not all) of which are definitely on the wrong side of the tracks; it proves great fun (especially as we in the audience get all the benefits of what happens here without having to take on ANY of the risks). In that way it gets to be quite a rollercoaster ride, with moments of comedy and thrills and spills all thrown in).Interesting how times change - in a more recent film we would surely have expected more from "Christine" (a fascinating enough character played here by Deborah Kara Unger) - in this respect some of our wishes go rather unfulfilled! Even Sean Penn doesn't do that much, though he's OK when on-screen. Personally, I've always had a soft spot for "the" character that James Rebhorn plays, so that's a reward for me at least, as he gets quite a bit of screentime.But in the end it's mainly down to Douglas as Van Orton, and this is not entirely by chance given the nature of the film, which can be watched and enjoyed with no problem whatever in 2018.

It's Fincher, so it looks and sounds fantastic. It's Douglas and Penn, so the performances are spot on. But it doesn't quite fire on all cylinders. Not emotionally engaging enough and too cerebral to really hook you in. Some great set pieces, but the coincidences required for the plot contrivance to work are just a step too far to be able to take it seriously. It's entertaining enough, but it ain't great.

Yeah it got me going for a little while there, thought this one was nicely building to one of those movies that plays deftly with the mind of both protagonist and viewer. A lot of you guys were fooled too considering the rating - this thing averages near 8/10, are you serious?Boy oh boy that ending... I don't ever remember an ending of a film so badly souring everything that's gone before. Wicker Man & the first "It" adaptation come close... "It" disappoints while "Wicker Man" through laziness ruins everything that comes before (and the dumb ones in the audience think it's being clever). But this ending takes the cake. So they knew exactly how this guy would react, in a moment of extreme emotional torment, because humans are so predictable at the best of times, let alone under extreme emotional duress. They knew he would shoot, they knew he would jump. They knew precisely what part of the building ledge he would jump off, to the point they could plan where to put the big canopy to catch him. The ledge was a pretty wide ledge, had to be dozens of feet on one side, dozens on the other, but hey, they knew exactly what part he'd jump off. They trusted that he would land like a pro stunt man, on his back, not on his head, which would still have broken his neck, soft landing pad or no.And, um, the company doing all this... what the heck do they charge? The budget for this kind of ridiculous service would be many millions, so you're saying a skeptical Michael Douglas agreed to pay this before knowing what he was getting? And the company wasn't worried about being sued by a rich client if something went wrong, which, with this absurd set up and the risks involved, easily could have?Michael Douglas was good, which shouldn't surprise since he's playing more or less the same character he's played in nearly every film, the unsmiling corporate head honcho type. I gave it an extra star for that. This could have been a good movie if they had been willing to come to a different conclusion somehow, maybe something a bit more metaphysical, but then you might have confused a few of the stupider viewers, and as we can all see, those outnumber the rest of us. So you have to keep the cattle happy with junk like this. Enjoy. Moo, moo.

I have never reviewed a movie, but this movie made me angry. I saw the glowing reviews this movie got and thought I must watch this. But the ending got me pissed!! The suspense was frustrating not exciting. I found the movie draggy and boring. The ending is so silly. If I was Michael Douglas I would have bashed my brother up big time!!!Bottom line, don't believe the reviews all the time.