Where's Dickens?

Rating: 5/10 (28 September 2006)

The original script for The Game was written back in 1840. Seems this guy is rich, has everything, but is cold as ice. His poor assistant lives on crumbs, and in the first scene he chases those with charity in their hearts out the door. That night he eats some spoiled gruel and has this dream that leads to his salvation.
This script floated about for 160 years. Several tried to make a film of it but were defeated by all the treacle it summoned up. Then Fincher came along and realized what the film needed. Take San Francisco instead of London, wet streets, dark night, threatening music and do the whole thing up again and Voila! The Game.
Douglas plays Douglas and is impressive doing so. Sean Penn is wasted in his part and the others go through the motions. The suspense can grab you because you are not sure if Fincher is going to have Douglas reprise the suicide of his father in the script, a plot device Fancher punched up by use of old home movies. Then you realize Fincher only kills off good looking heroes like the Bradster; he couldn't possibly do this to that A-1 pr--k Douglas, so he will grant him redemption and all will live happily ever after. Btw, the home movies were used to better effect in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom.
I will give Fincher credit: he started to borrow the bloody toilet scene from The Conversation but decided to let us see water. And he must have loved the demise of Malkovich's assassin from In the Line of Fire, but he permits Douglas to survive his fall.
So it is a fairy tale or a fable which is worth an evening's entertainment, but not much more. And seeing it again time is truly a waste of time.