Extolling the decadence of the 1% ahead of its time

Rating: 4/10 (7 February 2014)

Long before Occupy Wall Street, long before the term 1% (or 99% for that matter), we get The Game. The Game is one of those movies where you are captivated by the plot and action, you get to the end, you finish, and then 10 minutes later yell out, "That film sucked!" Why? Because of the ending, simple as that. We are thrilled with watching Michael Douglas slowly get stripped of everything he has by unseen assailants, only to find out that he was part of a game hosted by a company who caters to giving the ueber-rich a fun time. True, the Douglas character needed to have a change. His life was all cold profits and needed heart. How much better to have had him wake up from the experience and be "changed" somehow. Instead, I as an audience member felt not only did he go through no real change, but that the film was saying, "Isn't it neat the kinda services the rich can afford?" Of course, this film was made back in the '90's, when the economy was good and we still had a middle class. To see it now, it plays like the prelude to the bad dream of the excesses the 1% who have 40% of the country's wealth. This dream is of course reality, which makes The Game somewhat prophetic.