This movie will mess with your head

Rating: 8/10 (16 February 2012)

This is what I would call a movie that messes with your mind and is one where I will not mention the ending because it will give away too much. Anyway, it is the 48th birthday of very rich investment banker named Nicholas Van Orten (Micheal Douglas). On this birthday his brother, Conrad (Sean Penn) gives him a ticket to this game, but Nick is not really that interested, but gives it a go anyway and suddenly discovers that his life has been turned upside down. Throughout the movie one is not sure whether it is really just a game or some very elaborate plot.
Nicholas Van Orten is an incredibly anti-social person. Right at the beginning of the movie one notices that he just does not want company. He is given an option of all these social events and rejects the lot of them. He just hates socialising, though he does cancel things for his brother. Nick is a very serious man who just doesn't find that fun is all that important. One of this things that adds to his personality is the fact that his father committed suicide on his 48th birthday. There was no reason for his father to suicide but he did.
The game starts with an intense psychological test where they probe every part of his personality and then give him tasks that are truly challenging. Unfortunately I cannot give too much of this away because it will spoil the movie and remove the mind messing aspect of it. It is an incredibly good movie and I enjoyed it because I did not know how it was going to end.