Twisting the twist

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 2005)

The reason to watch this movie was Michael Douglas (Nicholas Von Orton) and no problem there as he made a very strong performance throughout. He just doesn't know what's going on as I didn't. Every 10 minutes the story gets a twist and says that all things previously seen are fake, now is the moment of the truth. Then in another ten minutes, again and again and again. In fact, in the end I got a bit tired of this and the constant change was not so entertaining. I watched the last 20 minutes only for sake of curiosity, to know what will be the final solution, which was original indeed. I think less twist would have been more, with more development of Nicholas' character, description of the plots. That way it would worth a second watch for me, this way it was just a fast moving funny action movie.
About the idea of 'The Game' - funnily the movie started me to think after a bit - this whole idea is so strange for me. First, it is so awkward that you need hundreds of people and millions of dollars and an incredibly strong impact on your personality to make you a shock and discover 'where life is' and come back to reality. Second, when you constantly discover, that everything previously experienced was a setup, when you showed true emotions and reactions others were just playing around you, when killing your brother was a fake and even your own suicide was a fake - then I think to loose ground and simply my personality would crash. I would no longer be able to trust anyone and any experience because I would constantly doubt whether this is part of a setup or is this 'real'. Authenticity is very important to me in my personal relations, and when someone plays with emotions and trust, all I can do is to let my walls fall build up suddenly, put on my mask, and keep all authentic feelings and reactions inside, and just give a smile to The outer world. Living such a way for a long time would be really a nightmare for me.
However, I like the idea of Mother Theresa and Sai Baba, who said "Life is a game. Play it." - though the words are similar, somehow that is such a different approach to life than what is presented in the movie "The Game".