A must for Hitchcock students

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2008)

The Game is a non-stop homage to Hitchcock, from the never-quite-modern San Francisco milieu to the symbolic doors, windows, mirrors, stairs, glass shards, blood, to the clueless man on the run from inexplicable evil, to fake falls off very high places to lifeless mannequins propped up in chairs.
Check the suggestive sign that lights up behind Michael Douglas as he moves to look down a subway staircase (which is really stairs from a bridge to the street) with a phone (and weird derelict) at the bottom; then a split edit with phone ring audio leading that cuts to Douglas answering a quite different phone. Consider the lyrics of the Jefferson Airplane/Grace Slick "White Rabbit," which appears in the film and is reprised in its entirety over the end credits.
Like every Hitchcock movie, The Game is, itself, a game: thoroughly engrossing when you're playing it, but obviously preposterous when you think about it five minutes later. If playing the game of The Game(and spotting all the Hitchcock tropes) is for you, you'll have a blast. If you're irritated by the wildly implausible (and even downright impossible), go watch a documentary.
If you fall in between, as I did, give in to the chase (BTW, the R rating must be solely for some F-- words: there's no explicit sex or violence) and enjoy the show. A great film it ain't; but for high class Hollywood production, it wins in every category.