The Game (1997, R)Directed by David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club)
Written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris
Starring Michael Douglas (Wall Street), Sean Penn (The Thin Red Line), and Deborah Kara Unger (Payback)
You’re miserable. Your life is a monotonous routine, the same thing, day after day. Your business provides you with more money than some small countries, yet day after day you experience the same living death that is characteristic of the post-modern rich boy. Douglas is a veteran at the role of the rich kid, having won a Best Actor Oscar in 1987 for his portrayal of Gordan Gekko in Oliver Stone’s "Wall Street".
In this movie, however, he begins to recognize that Greed may not be as good as it was made out to be.
On his 38th birthday, business is as usual. It is a day that he dreads due to the suicide of his father thirty years earlier, in which his father leapt from the roof of the home in which Douglas now resides.
His brother, Conrad Van Orton, played by Fast Times at Ridgemont High’s Sean Penn (ex husband of Madonna and current husband of Robin Wright of Forrest Gump), is a perpetual child. Seemingly incapable of being mature, he makes a lunch date with his brother under the name of Seymour Butts. His gift is a certificate for an interesting game run by the company CRS (Consumer Recreation Services).
Staring at the card later at night, just off the phone with his ex-wife and watching cable he decides to get ready to play.
The next day he goes to CRS, is given a psychological test and a physical, taking up the entire day, and he is told that his game will begin within a few days.
But what is the Game?
That is the question in the back of your mind throughout the entirety of the movie, as you find yourself thinking for a few seconds that you know what it is and then contradicting yourself. Is it a con for money? A psychotic murder plot? A taunting reminder of times past? Or is it really a game?
Whatever it is you know that there is one simple rule for this movie – Trust No One. And, following that maxim or not following it, you won’t know what’s real and what’s not until the very last frame.