The Game was No Laughing Matter

Rating: 8/10 (18 February 2016)

Yesterday I watched a movie that I hadn't seen in 19 years so I decided to watch another movie that I hadn't seen in about as long. Whereas the other movie was worse than I remembered, "The Game" was better than I remembered.
Before the morbid movie "Saw" put chosen people through an orchestrated "game" of sorts there was "The Game". Michael Douglas plays Nicholas Van Orton, a wealthy investment banker out of San Francisco. He's arrogant, rude and cutthroat--many of the qualities needed to be a successful businessman--but he's also lonely. On his 48th birthday his brother, Conrad (Sean Penn), gave him a gift of a "game" set up by CRS (Consumer Recreation Services). The "game" was no game at all to Nicholas, it was real.
I liked the fact they made Nicholas realistic. In other words, he wasn't a raging a-hole. They didn't make his character so over the top that you thoroughly hated him. He was a businessman that had standards. He wanted things done a certain way and he expected them done the way he wanted. He never made a scene to humiliate anyone or belittle anyone. He was subtle but his point was made. In that sense we weren't set up for some major conversion ala Scrooge.
The game he got involved in was elaborate. Maybe that would be the only real knock against the movie: just how elaborate the game was. It involved dozens of participants, series of misdirection and even some near death moments. It was so elaborate it bordered on extreme.
Besides that nuance I enjoyed the movie. I enjoyed it today just like I did, ahem... years ago.