Play to the End of Your Life

Rating: 9/10 (10 August 2005)

The Game weaves its way into and around your brain, challenging you to figure out the puzzle. It's a rather unique film experience because of that no-holds-barred challenge - it challenges you to figure out what's coming next, in a direct way not many other films attempt. It's a thinking person's film; whether it's actually intelligent or not probably depends on the individual, but I'd like to think it's pretty smart. Also pretty smart is the character played by Michael Douglas - business smarts, that is. Douglas was near the end of a roll playing businessmen, began in Wall Street(87). He becomes involved with an odd company, CRS, introduced to him by his younger brother (Sean Penn in a small role). What begins as amusing distraction for his orderly world soon turns sinister.
The film points out that people, especially smarter people whom you'd think don't need amusement, all need some kind of distraction. Isn't that what we're all doing essentially during our lifetimes - finding different means of distraction before the inevitable end? And aren't those distractions just a means to avoid thinking about that end? Douglas may be closer to that end than he thinks here. As the toying escalates and becomes dangerous, the viewer may think this has the makings of a slick, if standard, thriller, but that's not the case, to everyone's credit. You reach a point, however, when certain incidents demand suspension of disbelief, no matter how much you trust the filmmakers. How far can a man fall, for example, before you start to think there's a limit of how much I can buy into here? How much can be allowed, how much power can you allow for the puppeteers before a line is crossed? It crosses that line with me towards the end but reaching that point was an interesting experience, something I can say about too few films.
This was Fincher's middle film in his personal great trilogy, caught between "Se7en" and "Fight Club." If there's one other minor quibble I might voice, it's that his stylistic flourishes are missing in this one - it's comparatively straightforward, even with the Super-8 type flashbacks, and I would have to rate this a smidgen below the other two. However, if I had to pick one to watch over and over, it would be The Game.