Interesting concept that becomes preposterous and dumb

Rating: 2/10 (2 June 2015)

Director David Fincher has developed legions of fans that praise his every move and now try to go backwards and rehabilitate his mistakes. Fincher truthfully is an uneven filmmaker. For every Seven, The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, you have the indefensible Alien 3 and this little ditty, The Game.
The Game starts out well enough. Millionaire businessman Michael Douglas is given a gift for his birthday from ne'er-do-well brother Sean Penn to participate in an enigmatic game. Out of sheer curiosity, he investigates and is put through a battery of physical and psychological tests, before being told he does not qualify, which miffs him a bit. Then strange things begin to occur. Weird gifts show up, Douglas becomes certain that he is being watched/followed, and attempts are ultimately made on his life. He initially thinks it is "the game" but as the stakes rise he comes to believe something more sinister is at work.
Fincher provides his trademark dark brooding tone. The Game has a nice set-up and there is a fascinating idea at the core of the film, but it begins to fall apart in the execution by the one-third mark. It also requires us to suspend our belief and then brings out a jackhammer to shatter that suspension. As a result, it becomes increasingly foolish and stupid as it progresses, until it reaches an out-of-left-field climax that is not just preposterous, but requires the viewer to remove their brain completely and have Fincher stomp on it.
Douglas is not the most sympathetic or emotive of actors in the best of circumstances. Even in his Oscar-winning role of Gordon Gekko, he is basically an icy individual. Here is no different. Douglas should elicit our sympathy fairly quickly, but his central character is often so distant and aloof that it becomes difficult to care for him at all. Penn is unlikely cast in a glorified cameo as his brother (wouldn't you have loved to see their parents?). He brings nothing to the film. The remainder of the supporting cast is fairly irrelevant.
Prior to the big reveal at the end, the film has already evolved into a preposterous series of attempts to terrorize the main character. When the end comes and the big reveal is laid out and then the central character gets to react to them, your jaw drops to the floor because in no possible way could this have unfolded. Any attempts at realism have been slaughtered and left by the way-side. We have watched Douglas for a lengthy period of time be chased, terrorized, have his life placed in danger, driven into the ocean, made to think he has had his millions stolen and left a pauper, bamboozled by friends, acquaintances and family, worked up into hysteria, made to believe he has murdered his brother, and then driven to such extremes that he attempts suicide by jumping off a building...only to find that everyone has been in cahoots to convince him to enjoy life and stop and smell the roses! Huh? The film hits a new realm of idiocy in the sequence where Douglas takes his swan dive off the roof of a building and miraculously lands in air bags right outside of a swank dinner party for his birthday where all his family, friends and the people responsible for terrorizing him sit with champagne glasses in hand to welcome him. Miraculously, Douglas' response is not to hold everyone accountable for what he has been through, but to laugh it off, thank them all profusely and then try to pick up the femme fatale that the game's agency has had leading him on a merry chase. This is a shaggy dog twist that even M. Night Shyamalan would not touch. This is a real time-consuming mess and it is inconceivable that it has the high rating on IMDb that it does.