The Game poster & wallpaper

Armin Mueller-Stahl, Carroll Baker, Deborah Kara Unger

Wealthy financier Nicholas Van Orton gets a strange birthday present from wayward brother Conrad: a live-action game that consumes his life.

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82% liked it

112,826 ratings

R, 1 hr. 55 min.

Directed by: David Fincher

Release Date: September 12, 1997

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DVD Release Date: June 6, 2000

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Stats: 5,187 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (5,187)

  • SirPant
    September 22, 2009
    SirPant
    A fantastic thriller, Fincher does a great job as do the cast!
  • 76Majikat
    August 10, 2009
    76Majikat
    Extremely far fetched, but a really great, exciting, fascinating and entertaining, Action film.

    One of my favourite, watch over and over type of films.
  • danperry17
    July 30, 2009
    danperry17
    About time I finished this movie, I started watching it in about 1998 and never went back to it... good acting - I really liked Sean Penn and how he underplayed the brother, and Michael Douglas really does go all the way - but the movie's best and worst feature is that it's a con...( read more) game. Every time something scary happens, you - like the character - have to ask yourself "is this really dangerous, scary, etc.". While it sustains the intrigue, it also makes it really hard to invest in any kind of fear or excitement. A very comlpex movie, a filmmaker's film that turns out as decent "mid-90s fear of technology" popcorn fare in the end.
  • FangsFirst
    April 8, 2009
    FangsFirst
    Allegedly based on the real-life puzzle/treasure hunt that has been held annually for 36 years in San Francisco and Seattle, this film bears little resemblance to the descriptions I've read of those games. I grabbed it mostly because it was a David Fincher film, but also for a re...( read more)ason I prefer not to--shall we say--elucidate at this juncture. Or any juncture. Or at all. Let's leave it alone, shall we? Anyway, this is probably the most poorly received of Fincher's films (okay, barring Alien³, I guess--or Panic Room, which I've yet to see), at least publicly. Critics were all right with it (or even quite happy) but it didn't catch on in general. I don't hear much bile spit about it, nor do I hear praise or shrugs (however audible they may or may not be) tossed at it. Still, Fincher's a director I respect more and more all the time, and will happily give his films a go either way (I've even got Panic Room waiting in the wings of my enormously out of control DVD collection).

    Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) is the son of a wealthy businessman who committed suicide by leaping from their large estate's roof at 48, right in front of Nicholas' eyes. He's been dissociated from emotional reality since that point, completely enveloped in business and ignoring his ex-wife Elizabeth (Anna Katarina) and brother Conrad (Sean Penn). It is his 48th birthday as the film opens, and Conrad makes a cryptic offer to meet him for dinner via an old, lame injoke routed through Nicholas' assistant. This being the one connection Nicholas is willing to go with, he takes Conrad up on the offer and meets him. Conrad hands Nicholas a card with the number for "Consumer Recreation Services," and tells him this is his present, that he has enjoyed this service himself--knocking down Nicholas' guesses at its identity ("An escort service?"). After a battery of tests that Nicholas reluctantly agrees to, he's met with the image of a fallen body in front of the home that has stayed in his hands since his father was alive, mimicking his father's own fate. Angry, Nicholas brings the "body"--a clown doll--inside, and finds that he was not rejected from "The Game" provided by CRS as he believed. He's now led from place to place by intentionally abstruse clues, albeit ones that seem to find their use quite naturally in Nicholas' regular life. At first annoyed, Nicholas rapidly finds himself fearful of where the Game is taking him, and his fear is repeatedly given cause, only to have it removed.

    There are two primary components of this film I feel are worth discussing (or, more accurately, want to discuss): first, Fincher's approach to the story and Van Orton, and second, the hotly contested ending (and its quality or lack thereof).

    The thing that caught my eye first--and it was trained by seeing Fincher's careful eye in prior films, which is fed by my understanding that he is a meticulous perfectionist of a director--was the way the film opened. Scored (by Howard Shore) with minimalistic music, but strong enough to carry a feeling of distant, sad memory, is a carefully cut set of 8mm "home movies" of Nicholas' early life. It's bright and sunny, and filled with his birthdays as a child, his brother, his father, their home--and interspersed are elements of his father's suicide. It cuts from this to Nicholas at home. His house is silent, the only sounds coming from a financial television show and the echoes of huge hallways and rooms as he moves through them alone. Douglas' face betrays almost no emotion, and his interactions are clipped and brief. They aren't unfriendly, generally speaking, but they are not warm. Sometimes they're short and snarky, but even outright anger is unusual. When speaking to his wife he is flat and cold, cruel even as he cuts her off and shows a total disinterest in her. The way this is worked together is brilliant: it works in that way that I appreciate, the way a friend of mine has always appreciated music that I never could. In the way that he hears separate instruments, I have one part of my brain looking for technique and ideas and approaches and another actively and emotionally engaged, running separate threads for separate purposes. So long as they never bleed into each other (though if this were done in an interesting way, I suppose I might like that), I am quite pleased. When the part that is looking for technique has to work hard to see what's at work, but finds it easily with a firmer hand, I am impressed. This is what Fincher does: it's so easy and smooth in approach--even when wildly stylized--that you don't see it coming unless you stick a hand right in it and feel around. I don't doubt that, based on his reputation and what I've seen of his work, he spends a lot of time and effort on this, but the results are worth it regardless.

    What he manages to succeed at here is to make the film exactly what it is supposed to be for the viewer who comes in unaided by desires or preconceptions about what the film is or "could" or "should" be. Those expecting complete honesty from the film are going to be sorely disappointed. Those looking for outright realism will as well. It's not really about either of those things: it's about a man being faced with his greatest fear, and what that does to him and the people around him, and how it can be used against him, or how he can use it. It's not something everyone will be interested in, or that will work for everyone, but Fincher does it exactly right for what it is. I didn't feel betrayed when it chose the path it did; nor should any viewer, but we are all saddled with preconceptions that are the fault of endless reading and viewing, or with too-strict desires from the same. It's difficult to discuss in detail without revealing it, but I don't really even want to discuss it enough to give it away for anyone. Suffice it to say, the film does pull a good sucker punch on you, or maybe two or three, toward the end. You might see part of it coming, or even all of it (my mother never ceases to amaze me on this front--I wonder how she enjoys anything always predicting the ending just as she wonders how I can enjoy things while analyzing them), but it's unlikely you'd have all of the back alley turns in mind, and they're all important to the film and its concept as a whole.

    I'm not sure what I expected of this--disappointment, surprise or shrugging, but I think it was a slow-burning surprise that I got out of it. A good one.
  • mrpopcorn
    March 13, 2009
    mrpopcorn
    "What do you get for the man who has everything?"

    Wealthy financier Nicholas Van Orton gets a strange birthday present from wayward brother Conrad: a live-action game that consumes his life.

    REVIEW
    A fascinating, original absolutely pitch perfect thril...( read more)ler that is mysterious, suspenseful and rich in character. Michael Douglas stars as a successful business man celebrating his birthday. As a gift for "the man who has everything," his brother (Sean Penn) gives him a ticket to a corporation called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Reluctantly Douglas follows his curiousity to CRS and after filling out a lengthy questionaire, undergoing a rigorous medical examination and disclosing personal information about himself, he is told that his game will begin soon. Almost immediately afterwards strange things start happening. Things that seem so real that Douglas begins to question if people are actually trying to set him up, or if it is all just a game. His life is threatened multiple times, he meets a beautiful, mysterious woman with whom he becomes involved and the plot takes a series of roller coaster dives until it reaches it's shocking conclusion. Many people were unsatisfied with the ending of the film, possibly because there is no clear expectation generated by the midsection. But I feel that it is suitable and just. The Game is a thriller that thrills, and it doesn't sell out for cheap violence, sex, or explosions (although it has a little of all these things). It is a masterful film that demands multiple viewings, tautly directed and cleverly scripted. One of the best thrillers of the 90's!
  • filmofilka
    November 14, 2009
    filmofilka
    Koji film koja radnja ma odlicno!!!!!!!!!!!
  • jonnathanserrano2000
    November 9, 2009
    jonnathanserrano2000
    Very good movie takes you out of your seat!!
  • harret1972
    October 24, 2009
    harret1972
    Superb. The suspense is terrific and will have you guessing all the way to the end. This was recommend to me as I had never heard of it, I'm glad it did as it's up there with my fave films.
  • teeja85
    October 23, 2009
    teeja85
    Ujme dobrog filma, samo sam popizdila kad sam skuzila kraj. To mi je onako malo bezveze, moglo se to bolje doradit. Al da, bilo je napeto stalno :))) Ne dao bog da ja dobijem takav rodendanski poklon.
  • RachelJezel
    October 20, 2009
    RachelJezel
    Great film, with a million twists. You will figure out what is going on, then reconsider, then reconsider again, until you are going crazy second-guessing yourself. It all leads up to a final confrontation and climax that does not fail to score big. Creative, well-written, and dark.

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Comments

  • temptedblaze69
    March 16, 2008
    temptedblaze69
    I hate spoilers. :( I saw this movie years ago and didn't remember the ending so I was going to rewatch it, now it's ruined. Nice one.
  • Rydia
    September 24, 2007
    Rydia
    nice spoilers -_______-
    kinda like reading them on youtube comments.
  • dylanhal
    July 4, 2007
    dylanhal
    If we keep posting comments hers will disappear of the page.
  • Everpain
    May 30, 2007
    Everpain
    LOL, that's even dumper...
  • tijwij
    September 3, 2006
    tijwij
    lol dumbest comment ever!!!
    DON'T READ THE GIRL'S COMMENT IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT!!!
  • pofcorn
    August 14, 2006
    pofcorn
    Would you mind not spoiling the ending?
  • crazygirl1528
    June 12, 2006
    crazygirl1528
    i liked this movie, it's very intense,there's a moment where u start thinkin' it's all true but in the end it was just a surprise party, they just said just joking in other words...
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The Game Trivia

  • what movie is this line from? "I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game featuring you, while singing your own song in a new commercial starring you, broadcast during the Super Bowl, in a game that you are winning."  Answer »
  • Using the missing letters create the name of an actor/actress that has starred in the movies. Holy Smo_e Tit_nic Lit_le Children Finding N_verland _ar Game The Hol_day A kid i_ King Arthurs Court Heavenly Creature_ Ham_et Prid_ E_ernal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  Answer »
  • Name the first film ever in history to be adapted from a video game.  Answer »
  • Micheal Douglas' life was put on the line for his birthday in what film?  Answer »
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