Could have been so much more

Rating: 5/10 (10 June 2011)

I just rented this movie through Redbox, didn't realize it was so old.
This movie could have had some fixes to make it more believable or at least for the viewer to have a little more buy-in on what happens to Nicholas Van Orton.
Spoiler - Nobody can possibly believe that other people can strategize each move that another would make so that they could stay ahead of them - unless it was a dream or a matrix like situation where none of it is real anyway and completely concocted from software. For instance, what if while he is taking his tests in the beginning, they pull him into a virtual reality, which we don't know about until the end, which is "the game" - rather than trying to convince the audience it was real.
Second, there wasn't enough character development in the beginning for anybody to care what happens to this guy or what issues he has beyond being a cold workaholic to understand why the game is laid out as it is. If we knew he was afraid of heights or of suicide, or of failing to be perfect, the things occurring to him might seem more intense. (such as jumping off the fire escape into the trash cans, being trapped in an elevator, having his briefcase not open up when needed, etc.)