Good beginning and ending, too long a middle

Rating: Null/10 (30 August 1998)

THE GAME starts out so well that it's a shame it bogs down in the middle. But the ending more than makes up for it. At two hours and eight minutes it runs way, way too long. It needs at least half an hour cut out of it. If fact, more than an hour and a half could be cut and it could be run as the most expensive episode ever of THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
But, as I said, it starts well. Nicholas is an investment banker, played by Michael Douglas with his WALL STREET characterization and wardrobe intact. Nicholas makes money. Nicholas has money. Nicholas wants more money. He lives alone in a huge house in San Francisco, presumably spending his evenings alone counting his money.
Of course, his life is going to change. That's the film's whole thesis. Instead of changing in an unusual way, though, what happens blends elements of SECRET CINEMA (and this year's THE TRUMAN SHOW), THE WIZARD OF OZ, and A CHRISTMAS CAROL into a meatloaf of a movie made with leftover ingredients.
Nicholas's birthday comes along, and he gets together for dinner with his brother Conrad (Sean Penn). Conrad is the loose cannon of the family. In and out of trouble, in and out of rehab. He and Nicholas were both traumatized by their father's suicide many years ago, an event which will be strangely echoed in elements of THE GAME's most excellent climax.
Conrad has a gift for Nicholas: a gift certificate for a once in a lifetime experience. Nicholas submits to a battery of psychological and physical tests, and soon the game begins in earnest.
Driving home one night, Nicholas finds a wooden clown in the driveway. He carries the clown into the house, and later finds an important key in the clown's mouth. While Nicholas watches the news on tv, reporter Daniel Schorr talks to Nicholas, calling him by name and alerting him to at least one hidden tv camera and microphone in the room. Before long paranoia is building in Nicholas's mind as the events become more and more bizarre; there are signifigant questions about what is real and what is paranoid fantasy. And there's a beautiful woman named Christine (Deborah Kara Unger) who changes from ally to enemy as many times as Eva Marie Saint did in NORTH BY NORTHWEST.
From here on the movie is a series of Chinese boxes, with plot revelations coming at ten minute intervals just like subway trains- and with the same predictability. A big theme of the story is that the bad guys have figured Nicholas's mind out so well that they can predict his every move, and his every move gets him trapped deeper and deeper. That same element of predictability adversely impacts the movies seemingly endless second act.
Nicholas is told that the game can be stopped at any time he wants, but Conrad confirms that it can't. There's a strange conversation with Conrad in which I'd swear that about ten seconds of dialog is played twice, which gives the scene the feel of a dream, but it isn't.
Nicholas starts out with a life of luxury and comfort; the opening scene of the third act finds him having to hitch-hike from Mexico to San Francisco, and plead with patrons in a roadside diner to give him a ride.
After making a false start with the third film in the ALIEN series, director David Fincher came back like a champ with SE7EN, which I felt was by far the best film to come out that year. THE GAME is a small step back for him, one from which he'll probably recover; if SE7EN hadn't blown me away so completely, I might be more forgiving of THE GAME. Counting uncredited ones, a total of at least four writers worked on this film. It shows.
Lord know he has a great cast to work with here. Sure, Michael Douglas's character is familiar to us in the first act as he plays the ruthless captain of industry, but as the story progresses we see a more human side of Nicholas. Sean Penn is always a welcome sight, even if he does have a rather small part here. And Deborah Kara Unger is a good actress who may well have great things ahead of her.
And that ending. Wow, that ending. It's not often that I'm shouting advice to onscreen characters when I watch a film on cable, but this time I was yelling "Look out!" and "No! No! NO!!!" loud enough that even though Michael Douglas couldn't hear me, people driving by our house probably did; hey, my family already thinks I'm strange, what the heck.
And a very important thing that I can assure readers of without spoiling anything: the story is NOT a dream nor is it a halucination brought on by any drug. I was braced for it to end with Nicholas sitting bolt upright in bed drenched with sweat mumbling about what a weird dream he'd had; I didn't like that plot device in INVADERS FROM MARS or any other movie except THE WIZARD OF OZ.
Parents' note: THE GAME's R rating is almost entirely for language. There's very little violence and no nudity or sex. The R rating is to trick teenagers into thinking they'll see more than they are going to. A skilled editor could (and should) have cut it to a PG in an afternoon.
On a scale of five, Pops gives THE GAME four birthday cakes.