The Game
Tags: dark, psychological, neo noir, mystery, atmospheric, plot twist, psychedelic, action, tragedy, suspenseful

Plot synopsis:
Nicholas Van Orton (Douglas) is a successful businessman, but his success has come at the cost of his family life. When the movie opens, he is divorced, distant from his caring ex-wife and cold toward his only living relative, his kid brother, Conrad (Penn). Nicholas goes about life in a cold, detached manner and seems incapable of expressing emotion or caring for anyone outside of himself.On Nicholas's 48th birthday, Conrad presents him with an unusual gift, a game offered by a company called Consumer Recreation Services, promising that it will change Nicholas' life. (The idea of Consumer Recreation Services seems to be borrowed directly from the G.K. Chesterton story "The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown"). The nature of the game is unclear at first, but it appears to be a sort of live action role-playing game that integrates directly into the player's real life. After a full day of tests and a physical examination, Nicholas is informed that the game company cannot serve him. However, Nicholas soon discovers that this is false and the game has begun. The game focuses on a key moment of Nicholas' life when, as a child, he witnessed his father committing suicide by leaping off their family home, the same home Nicholas lives in. Significantly, Nicholas' father took his life on his 48th birthday, the same age as Nicholas is now.As the movie progresses, evidence mounts that the game is actually an elaborate scheme, but each time Nicholas thinks he has uncovered the truth, he finds that a new layer of complexity has been revealed and that his previous assumptions were false. The Game quickly escalates into a no-holds-barred assault on everything Nicholas values, and his carefully ordered life and business empire rapidly disintegrate around him as The Game takes control. An employee of an upscale restaurant (Unger) at first assists him in escaping from the clutches of the CRS operatives, but after a series of narrow escapes and repeated attempts on his life, Nicholas is captured, transported to Mexico and subjected to a premature burial (albeit one he easily escapes from), all while having his bank accounts drained by the employee who was pretending to help him. The Game is now revealed to be an elaborate scam to relieve the power elite of their property and their lives.Alienated from his friends and his trusted lawyer, Nicholas comes to a realization about his life and reconciles himself with his ex-wife, who has happily remarried and is pregnant with her second child. Nicholas soon becomes desperate and retrieves a hidden handgun from his home, where upon he heads directly into the offices of The Game company and takes one of the staff hostage. The movie comes to a climax on the roof of the game company's skyscraper. A jumpy Nicholas demands answers. The employee appears surprised by the gun, telling Nicholas that the game company thought they had replaced any real firearms Nicholas could access with fakes. A door opens, surprising Nicholas, and he fires without looking, only to reveal that he has shot his brother holding a bottle of champagne and dressed for his birthday celebration. Stricken with remorse, Nicholas leaps off the skyscraper and crashes through a glass ceiling, but he lands safely in an airbag. There he finds his family and friends awaiting his arrival and The Game is revealed to have just been a game. The accounts have not been drained, the gun was replaced with one firing blanks, and his brother is alive. As they embrace, Conrad confesses that he arranged the game as a way to shake his brother back to reality and make his brother enjoy life, to which the two break down in tears. Nicholas then offers to split the seemingly large cost of the game, to which his brother happily agrees.As a party is in full swing with friends and family, Nicholas meets several of the guests who at all points, were operatives in the game in various guises. When he finds out that one employee is about to depart for the night, Nicholas runs outside and strikes up a conversation with her as the film ends.

Review: Filled with plot twists and turns, this film takes the movie-goer on a psychological roller coaster ride from the tile screens to the final credit roll."The Game" is truly an intelligent tale, sort of a brain teaser that you get to watch and listen to, with a time limit.
"The Game" took me on one psychological thrill ride after another loaded with twists and turns scene after scene.Michael Douglas pulled off his best performance as Nicholas Van Orton a man who is approaching his birthday.
Nicholas reluctantly agrees and soon finds out that the game is more than he bargained for.I thoroughly enjoyed this film because I never knew who was trustworthy or what was going to happen next, this truly was one film that must be seen by those who enjoy never knowing for sure how a movie will turn out.
However, a really good movie can not be pulled off by one actor, a whole lot of credit should go to Sean Penn and Deborah Kara Unger for their convincing portrayals in this film..
Fortunately, he was wise enough to try different paths, and although all his movies can be classified as thrillers there's no real similarity between them, except maybe a common theme of alienation and solitude.In Fincher's third film, The Game, that solitude is physically incarnated by Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas), a wealthy businessman who is so obsessed with his job he has forgotten everything about the simple joys of life.
With his assets frozen, his apartment no longer a safe place and no one left to trust, Nicholas must figure out how to solve the problem before it's too late - for him or someone else...As usual, Fincher makes sure the film works on a technical level, cleverly using camera angles, lighting (shades of red and brown being the dominant color) and editing to keep the suspense alive and the atmosphere conveniently murky.
Two other elements contribute to elevating The Game above the average mystery tale: a truly unpredictable, phenomenal ending, in pure Fincher tradition (well, at least until he made Panic Room), and the great work by the leading men, Douglas' paranoid desperation slyly erasing all hints of typecasting (after all, this is not the first time he has played someone who is being manipulated; in fact, one scene explicitly spoofs one of those previous movies) and Penn's smug anarchy anticipating director's masterpiece, Fight Club, and its central character, Tyler Durden (without a doubt Brad Pitt's best role to date).In short, those looking for a "different" cinematic experience should give The Game a try: it might come off as overly cold or contrived at first, but like all of Fincher's movies it deserves a re-evaluation (Fight Club wasn't exactly a hit when originally released) and stands the test of time as one of the most original, smartest films of the '90s..
I saw this on the big screen and throughout most of this masterpiece I kept asking myself, "where is this movie going?"  For 128 spirited minutes The Game takes your mind and twists it ruthlessly, contorting it in any way it so desires.
It has often been said that this movie was one he'd wanted to make for a long time and upon viewing you can really see his belief in both characters and the story- overall an excellently directed movie.Although several people argued that "Seven" was gory, in my opinion it wasn't, for example, there is a total lack of blood in the Lust scene, something which I particularly admired- the fact that a director could make a chilling and shocking movie without resorting to piling tons of blood onto the screen.
"The Game" is about a wealthy investment banker, called Nicholas Van Orton, who is given a mysterious birthday present by his brother Conrad.
The film was eventually ranked #44 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.This thriller successfully holds suspense the whole way through.
There is a wide range of occurrences happening throughout the movie, which only make sense at the end of the story, so once we have seen a few of the experiences that Nicholas must go through, we are dragged into the film, continually wondering who is good, who is bad, and how the events all link together.
The Game (1997)The steely intensity of Michael Douglas comes to play once again here in a role where that determination keeps getting waylaid by the mixed-up birthday present he's been handed, somewhat against his will.
The main example is of course "The Fight Club," the distortions are almost literal in the more ordinary "Panic Room," and the world is somewhat friendlier in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Yes, these are all Fincher films (as is the brand new American version "Dragon Tattoo" flick and the riveting "Se7en").The production and the shooting and editing in particular are all first rate, classic Fincher.
In a way, the film is preposterous from the start, but yet you go along with the idea because very rich people have very unusual lives, and maybe this kind of mind-trip birthday present with lots of people participating could happen.
It's one of Fincher's best films and deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as Fight Club, Se7en etc etc.It starts by slowly showing us the world of Nicholas (Michael Douglas) and how he's alone on his 48th birthday.
Of all the films I saw in the year 1997, this "The Game" with Michael Douglas has to be one of the best.
Because really you don't see any complex plot twist, and the the film is thrilling and suspenseful with a hard and direct pressed acting performance from Douglas.
So one day younger brother the more liberal and free spirited Conrad(Sean Penn) gives Nicholas a birthday present a gift card from a corporate company called consumer recreation services(CRS) for as Conrad says the experience and pleasure of a lifetime that this game will add all the fun and entertainment to your life that's missing.
Overall really a fine done film with good acting from Douglas and the story was a neat concept from Fincher with thrills and fun suspense and in it's day this film might have been a glimpse into the future form of identity theft.
Fincher's third movie stars Michael Douglas as the rich, cold and alone Nicholas Van Orton.
However, this does not make his performance nor the film "The Game" something to avoid...and considering I am no fan of him as a person, the fact I loved the movie so much says a lot.
Up until that moment, you feel like you were watching a work of art, and then just before it ends in the same way that the rest of it has been, it cuts to some lame excuse for everything that happened in the movie up to that point, rather than a good explanation.
Sean Penn and Michael Douglas are two actors, who's work I had until this film came out, found always watchable, regardless of plot or role.
Director David Fincher is becoming rather predictable: once again, he gets the proceedings off to a sluggish start (with stilted introductions to his players) and doesn't follow through on promising ideas or with basic logic (as when Douglas finally calls the police about a break-in, yet the scene is left unresolved).
David Fincher's The Game gets another fine performance from star Michael Douglas.
Just watched this suspense thriller directed by David Fincher and starring Michael Douglas on HD DVD.
Michael Douglas turns in a likable performance as the perfect character to have so many things go wrong for him, and the dialogue and music craftily add to the suspense; the unnervingly high-pitched piano and deep string music never lets you forget this is a thriller.
His paranoia and uncertainty of what is happening interests us in the same way as if we were engaged in the game ourselves.David Fincher has been making feature length movies since 1992 when he directed the third film in the Alien series.
I would rather not discuss the plot with anyone because this movie is definitely an experience which some could argue come close to what the late Alferd Hitchcock would bring to us , all I can say that after watching you might love it loathe one thing is for certain and that is that won't ever be bored during the course of this journey.
Having recently seen it again, it is also a flick which is one of those as interesting on subsequent viewings as the first.And aside from the excellent cast and performances, and with Michael Douglas, my personal favorite actor -- it managed to combine several genres at once, all of them better-presented than in films where only one would be involved.Science fiction has always presented unexplainable and impossible features compared with "real life." Heck, 70 years ago, Buster Crabbe as "Buck Rogers," along with his cohorts, was flying throughout the universe in a craft, large and well-equipped and -furnished, much like Kirk and Spock and the "Star Wars" denizens, everyone walking around freely as if they were in a fancy hotel suite.
As the game that central-character, Nicholas Van Orton, was offered unfolds, and prank after elaborate prank turns to deadly ambiguous reality, Nicholas loses control of his life but also finds himself as the traveler in a Danteesque hell.The metaphysical meaning is this: the whole experience works as some sort of purgatory for Nicholas, who gets a chance to redeem himself of his sins (him being a ruthless capitalist businessman and alienated from pretty much everyone around him).
Anyone who watched this film and thought the ending was a surprise or twist, my god you couldn't handle the Teletubies.The film started off ok, but about half way through I realised that things were getting silly and started not to care about the main character at all.
With Michael Douglas, Sean Penn and an interesting concept I thought i'd be in for a decent watch but at the end I have to say it is way too contrived and unbelievable, it thinks its clever and symbolic but it isn't and this has the effect of being extremely annoying , the movie is ultimately pointless and i felt cheated im not a fan of Fincher at all extremely overrated, far from the genius he is billed by the public and media.
I don't want to spoil the film but if anyone gave me that birthday present i would at the very least break their nose, the basic plot is that Michael Douglas, an extremely rich successful buisinessman clearly lonely and depressed is given a highly expensive gift which is a kind of "personalized reality game" for his birthday from his moronic brother Sean Penn, to enjoy this film you would have to suspend your disbelief to infantile levels which is OK for some films but this makes pathetic attempts at realism, I don't want to go into specifics as it's exausting those that have seen the film know what im talking about, I think it could have been much better if they had gone down the route that the film twisted away from but i predicted extremely early that it wouldn't ultimtely the film is very hollow and idiotic, sorry to those who thought it was a work of genius with a profound message.
You would have thought that a thriller helmed by Hollywood darling David Fincher, whose resume includes Seven, and with a cast that includes Michael Douglas, Sean Penn and the wonderful Deborah Unger could not fail to deliver.It does fail and there are two reasons why.
The main thread common to most all of the poor reviews is how things so quickly spin out of control with absurdity piled on absurdity, finally reaching an ending that ranks with the most ridiculous I have seen.Things start out well enough with Michael Douglas playing the self-important, officious, extravagantly wealthy financier Nicholas Van Orton.
Michael Douglas shows his perfection in this movie by playing a Wealthy San Francisco financier, 'Nicholas Van Orton'.
So, his younger brother, Conrad (Sean Penn), gives Nicholas an unusual gift for his 48th birthday: an invitation to play an elaborate and mysterious "game", from a mysterious corporation called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS).It's an intriguing film concept; a cold-blooded corporate exec submits to a proposition that forces him to function as a puppet on a string.
The script is solid, but it is really the effective partnership between Douglas and Fincher, as well as great supporting acting turns from Sean Penn, James Rebhorn and Debra Kara Unger, which really helps ground this slow burning but always engrossing psychological thriller.
You have to pay attention, but as the plot twists and turns it does work its way to a satisfying if surprisingly climax (especially for a director of Fincher's background) you'll enjoy the way that Douglas's Nicholas Van Orton character is stripped of his layers of reserve and control as the character is cleverly placed in one crisis after another.
David Fincher directed this twisty thriller that stars Michael Douglas as Nicholas Van Orton, a successful banker who gets a most unusual present on his birthday from his wayward brother Conrad(played by Sean Penn), a gift card to join CRS(consumer recreation services) an entertainment company.
A very smart thriller, the plot unfolds time to time and turns and twists and surprises and toys around with your mind and builds hyper- tension and plays a game with the viewers.
That's always been his trademark!The ending does have a few plot holes but with a little cinematic liberty, Fincher makes the whole movie-experience all the more interesting for us.
He and Fincher together makes us experience the same emotions as Nicholas Van Orton character feels in the movie.
The deviation from normality following this immensely realistic opening created an amazing contrast that set the tone of the film.The plot twists come and go, and you never really know what is going to happen - the guessing game is expertly crafted both by Fincher in his direction, as well as John D.
You have to watch that now not only movie that's like playing game.
The music really helps with achieving that immersion.In the end, it is hard not to go over the movie in your mind, consider if the plot holds together when you finally discover what is happening, and ultimately it does not entirely hold together, it has contrivances necessary to realize this story and requires you to suspend disbelief and/or not think too hard about the plausibility of some sequences.
I normally predict where a story is going and what characters are really after but I was always one step behind in this movie.Im sure there was lots I missed and would see only on second watching.Acting,stunts,story,cinematography was all amazing.Currently rated 9 because Im still a little hyped but if I feel the same way I will change to 10.What I like best about the movie are all the little lessons that are sprinkled throughout without laying it on thick, such as the banker needing to take his life a little less seriously and break bread with his family.Great job!!!!
Yet, films like this seem to leave an ambiguous impression for me which isn't the case why "The Game" is considered as one of the most underrated of all David Fincher's works.This is about Nicholas Van Orton played by Michael Douglas.
Just like other films, David Fincher relies more on a plot twist as an attraction in his films and leaves a dark impression with a genre of mystery, drama, and thriller.
You are waiting at the end or for the end, choices in your hands.The pace of this movie is like other David Fincher films, not all, but it's very different.
Is Nicholas' flashback itself related to the ending at the end of the film because I see, the CRS is so careful in handling this game whether they play with Michael Douglas or the audience's minds.
Bottom line, "The Game" is an underrated gem of a masterpiece like other films by David Fincher.
Douglas is in top form and this was at the end of his run as leading man as the late 90s dawned but the film is a David Fincher signature.
A neo-Hitchcock movie if I ever saw one.The film follows a dull and greedy investment banker who is given a card as a birthday present by his brother, who tells him to phone up the company whose expertise lies in some form of enigmatic character building game.
If I had any complaints about the film it would be the ending which, for a movie that was pretty believable for the most part, required a lot of suspension of disbeliefBest Scene: Like I said it's been sometime since I've seen it.
The film tells the story about how a wealthy financier's life turns around after he is gifted a live- action game on the eve of his birthday.
Good writing like there is in, "The Game," is hard to find.I've seen some of David Fincher's (director, "The Game) films - his latest being "Benjamin Button." "The Game" is one of his best efforts.If you like originality and getting psyched out this movie has it all.
Never once in the movie (or at least once we were introduced to the game that Nicholas Van Orten was playing) did I have the thought that "I could see this happening." Never.
Michael Douglas was in character, playing a fairly stereotypical character for him, as Nicholas Van Orten, and Sean Penn did well as his little brother Conrad, who presented Nicholas with the game as a birthday gift.
Another thing I am a big fan of in David Fincher films are the legendary plot twists.
If you like David Fincher, expect the usual suspense, mystery and thrill that surrounds his movies, but not to the same high class.