The Symbolism of Russian Roulette

Rating: 5/10 (6 January 2014)

Michael, Nicky, and Steven all end up being taken hostage in a Vietnamese POW camp where the people who captured them force them to play Russian Roulette. This game is where you put one bullet in a random chamber of the handgun, spin it, and you then raise it to your head, and pull the trigger. You then take turns until there's only one man left standing. I believe the point of this game is to prove "who is man enough", and either way--if you didn't take part in the game, you were killed anyways. The director was probably trying to prove that whoever participated in the game was "manly" and not perceived as "cowardly". I personally think Russian Roulette is the dumbest game, but for it to be shown in this particular movie, I thought it fit in very well, and I thought it was a good decision.