Powerful

best movie i've ever seen.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

When I read what this was all about I wanted to watch it, as it's a question that's been in our family for years, are video games any good for youngsters, if played to excess.I found this to be watchable enough, the acting was particularly good, I just found it boring. There were times when it transformed into melodrama, the court scenes were tedious.I find Jack Thompson's argument about the morality of the video games a little rich, I'd have thought his argument would have been initially about the ease at which you can obtain a firearm stateside. It poses an interesting argument.I found it quite strange that Daniel Radcliffe accepted this part, good though he was it could perhaps have been written for anybody. He's too accomplished an actor for so anonymous a part.

This film is overtly right-wing and portrays Jack Thomson as a crusader for good despite him in reality being disbarred for many good reasons. He is a person who lied and used people to further his reputation and career which ultimately collapsed on him, but the film shows him as the saint he tried claiming to be. I am clearly not of this view, so this film might perhaps appeal to those on the conservative side.However, I would expect most viewers to be those with an interest in GTA and Rockstar Games, to whom only dissatisfaction is bound. The script has Dan constantly coming up with ideas for the next game which nods to GTA San Andreas but in the most pointless way. Him and his team are portrayed as reckless perverts but maybe this all plays into how Rockstar like being portrayed, as the social deviant, which they do on purpose to help market Grand Theft Auto games. This isn't explored in this film however, which just shines light on the BBC's ignorance.It should also be noted that at the start of the film we are told straight off that the order of events has been changed. That's because Jack Thomson wasn't disbarred until way after these events and it certainly wasn't down to Rockstar Games, it was down to an entire expanse of his career being based on manipulating felons into blaming games for their crimes and bullying games companies and others with unfounded legal threats.So to conclude, this film was frustrating for its misrepresentation of its characters, dull in its delivery of a game being developed and misinformative with the historical facts making it overall unproductive to watch.

Stories about ideas are fun. Watching the evolution of an idea to success and the aftermath captures something exciting about being human and having the power to create and act. I think of Cobb in Inception, saying "what's the most resilient parasite? An idea". And of course, one of the best movies about ideas is David Fincher's The Social Network. Unfortunately, the writer here is no Aaron Sorkin. The central conflict of the story is Houser vs Thompson in a debate that's not particularly explored in any meaningful way, nor concluded with any sense of satisfaction. It all just feels slight and phony, like it was made for 13 year olds. Radcliffe looks like a college kid on work experience, and strangely looks better suited to Chris Morris's Four Lions than a game development studio. He just never seems to have the depth or confidence to really sell a character. The Rockstar staff don't talk like people who have grown and worked together, knowing each other implicitly - instead they stick to turgid dialogue word for word because the director obviously didn't give any room for the characters to breathe or flesh out. Worst of all is how much it tries to emulate The Social Network. Shots of people tapping away on keyboards are given an electronic score that desperately wants to channel Trent Reznor's excellent score for TSN. The attempts to create an exciting atmosphere fall flat on their face though, because the script just isn't that interesting. Its probably the best they could do with a small TV budget and a nervous, possibly inexperienced crew, but it would have benefited from finding its own voice rather than copying better films and trying to be better than it really is.

Critics, even Rockstar themselves, have been very negative of the recent release (15th September 2015) of The Gamechangers. It has been slated for being poorly acted or not accurate to the real-life events or even just plain bad; but what these opinionated reviews are missing is the entire pragmatic of the film.The Gamechangers clearly states, without sounding like one of lawyers in the film, that the scenes shown have been altered for dramatic effect (or words to that effect) thus any point on how realistic the film really was is entirely out of the question, all that matters is that the events happened. Just happened. And what this film really did was present both sides of the argument in, for possibly the first time in the film industry, a balanced manner. In my personal opinion the film does not romanticise any aspect of the lives of each side of the GTA debate, which can be generalised to the entire argument of violent video games, and even if, as a viewer, the viewer feels they liked or were made to associate more with a certain type of character, or one side of the argument, more then they must ask themselves if a character on the opposing side could not be empathised with by a different type of person. In film, everyone feels a connection with a certain type of character and those characters vary. Some prefer the villain to the hero, the Joker to Batman and so on. Yet as the film finishes, which ever character you empathise with the most you cannot but feel as thought you are stuck in two minds, debating with yourself, about who really is the most respectable, honourable or even moral character in this tale. The plain exclamation that --- remains on death row seems to provide a led weight on the conscious if you associate more with the GTA team or, conversely, the amount of money and respect Rockstar still gain, as is stated, provides a balancer for those who associate with the moral movement against violent video games for developing minds. Either way both sides have characters presented as mad, immoral and ugly whilst also portraying aspects of good, revolution and development.In essence, this film has provided a non-biased ending, which the viewer can take away not a sense of excitement or pleasure from their film but rather leave in a contemplative and quizzical state. And that is rare for modern film. This picture has, as is the aim of many of the characters, broken down barriers and revolutionised real-life based film. But the question after you have balanced your moral scale and decided on a place to stand is why have films documenting real events not provided as bleak and factual interpretation as this one previously? Real-life dramas should let us make up our own minds. And I believe this film has taken the first step in letting us do so.