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This year, director David Fincher earned his first best-director Oscar nod for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But, like this year’s Oscar-winning director, Danny Boyle, Fincher has a much darker, grittier past, filled with edge-of-your-seat thrillers like Fight Club and 1997s The Game.
Michael Douglas stars as Nicolas Van Orton, a wealthy, cut-throat businessman who’s all but cut himself off from the outside world. On the day that Nicolas turns 48—the same age that his father had been when he killed himself—his rebellious little brother, Conrad (Sean Penn), arrives with an unusual birthday gift: a certificate for a mysterious, real-life game.
Despite his reservations, Nicolas agrees to give The Game a try. And after he fills out the forms and waivers and goes through the required psych evaluations and physicals, The Game begins. It starts out small: a leaking pen, a briefcase that won’t open. But, before long, Nicolas finds himself running for his life, caught up in scandal, and in danger of losing everything that’s important to him. The Game begins to spin wildly out of control, until he no longer knows what’s real and what’s just The Game—or whether it really is just a game.
Eerie and suspenseful, with a new and perplexing twist around every corner, Fincher’s The Game is a cinematic brain-teaser that builds gradually, eventually working its way up to a frantic, frenzied pace.
Once the story begins to pick up speed, you’ll find yourself playing along with Nicolas, trying to fit the pieces together to figure out what it all means. Is it real? Is it just a game? Or maybe it’s all just one big con. You won’t know for sure until that last breath-taking moment—because just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, Fincher throws in another hint to lead you off in a completely different direction. And although the story isn’t without its share of minor flaws and holes, you’ll be too captivated to notice (or, for that matter, care).
After making it through this pleasantly puzzling thriller, you’re sure to feel as if you’ve just completed a two-hour Sudoku marathon. The Game is certainly maddening. You might even say that it’s mentally exhausting. But it’s also wildly, wonderfully entertaining.
If you somehow managed to miss The Game, be sure to hunt down a copy of the DVD. Or, if it’s been a while since you last played The Game, it’s well worth playing again.
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