Excellent

Rating: 9/10 (9 January 2012)

The "paranoia thriller" is a formula-based movie genre - some individual has his or her nice comfortable life overturned by some external agent, usually with a malevolent motivation, which results in the poor victim / protagonist going on the run, with their entire support network (financial, social, residential, identity, everything) in tatters.
The good thing about this particular formula is that it hasn't been overused. This means that films falling into this pattern (The Net, Pacific Heights) come across as fresh and pleasing. The Game is another good example. Nicholas (Michael Douglas), a hard-nosed business man, having cut himself off from his entire family through work, suddenly finds himself embroiled in the Game, given to him as a birthday present by his estranged brother Conrad (Sean Penn). As the conspiracy underpinning The Game becomes clearer, it destroys every element of Nicholas's life (and also Conrad's). Nicholas fights as best he can against this unstoppable and faceless conspiracy, but...
This thriller is intelligent, fast-paced, exciting, and involving. All the cast are excellent, and Douglas succeeds in making the unlikeable Nicholas someone who we ultimately sympathise with. If you haven't seen it, it is well worth catching.