Investment banker Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) – who arrives at work in a building named after his father – is wished happy birthday by his new secretary. “I don’t like her,” Van Orton confides to his loyal assistant Maria (Elizabeth Dennehy). She notifies her boss that he received a prank call from a “Mr. Seymour Butts” wanting to have lunch. Van Orton has her make a reservation for himself and Mr. Butts at his usual table at the city club.
There, Van Orton meets his nomadic brother Conrad (Sean Penn). Despite not having seen each other in three years, Conrad has a birthday present for him. “What do you get for the man who has everything?” It’s a gift certificate for “Consumer Recreation Services.” Conrad implores his brother to call the number. “It will make your life … fun.” The only other person that the icy Van Orton hears from on his birthday is his ex-wife, who remembers he is now the same age his father was when he committed suicide.
Van Orton believes Consumer Recreation Services must be a self-improvement cult of some kind, but is intrigued enough to drop by their San Francisco office. He meets with a V.P. of Engineering (James Rebhorn) who submits Van Orton to an entire day of psychological and physical testing. When Van Orton asks what exactly it is they’re selling, he’s told, “It’s a game. Specifically tailored for each participant. Think of it as great vacation, except you don’t go to it, it comes to you.”
Returning home, Van Orton finds a life sized clown doll in his driveway. Strange things begin to happen: an anchorman on TV speaks directly to him, his hotel room is littered with drugs and comprising photos, and strangers everywhere seem to be watching him. He meets a waitress (Deborah Kara Unger) who may either be part of the game or a victim of it. The pranks soon become life threatening, and she reveals that the people behind the game have accessed Van Orton’s bank accounts. Now they want him dead.
Production history
The Game was an original screenplay by John Brancato & Michael Ferris that spent the early ‘90s in development at MGM. The writers had served as script doctors on a made-for-Showtime movie called Flight of the Black Angel, where they worked with an up and coming director named Jonathan Mostow. Mostow spent years developing and trying to set up The Game, but without the clout needed to attract a star, ceded to the writers’ request that he relinquish directing duties.
Producer Steve Golin knew a director with even more potential than Mostow. He pursued David Fincher to direct the script, which had gone through a revision by Larry Gross. When Brad Pitt suddenly became available to star in Se7en, Fincher made that film instead. The psychological thriller established him as an A-list filmmaker. With a polish from Se7en scribe Andrew Kevin Walker, Fincher then turned his attention to The Game.
The first actor Fincher approached was Jodie Foster. The script was tweaked so that Van Orton’s brother became his daughter. Michael Douglas agreed to star, but the 51-year-old actor had second thoughts about the 33-year-old Foster playing his child. He wanted her to play his sister. The studio – Polygram – backed Douglas. Foster dropped out and filed lawsuit. Released September 1997, the film suffered critically and commercially in comparison to Se7en, but has a devoted following from who’ve seen it.
Opinion
Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac are the movies that journalists typically question David Fincher about, but in terms of mind bending mysteries made with intelligence and an exquisite eye for detail, The Game is absolutely on that level. The film builds slowly – and seems to wander off occasionally – but ultimately succeeds in turning the audience upside down in an intellectual carnival funhouse, until we aren’t sure which trick is in store for us at the end.
A lot of credit goes to the screenwriters, who don’t dumb the script down with conventional bad guys or plot devices, but instead place the focus on a modern man who has taken his life for granted. Douglas and Penn – as they gradually come unwound – are terrific, while Fincher and director of photography Harris Savides cloak the film in sinister dread, recalling the best thrillers of the early ‘70s. For those who enjoy the journey, The Game is loaded with Easter eggs that make the film even more rewarding on repeated viewings.
Chris Coleman at Appreciating Great Trash writes, “David Fincher’s The Game is a thriller contrived to within an inch of the breaking point, a movie that, when taken literally, asks so much from an audience’s suspension-of-disbelief that it becomes taxing. Instead, it’s much more rewarding when viewed as a reflexive comment on cinema itself.”
“The Game is a tricky, sharp thriller that has some very interesting ideas and a core element of psychological complexity that makes it worthwhile viewing for those who enjoy paranoid thrillers, but one really has to overlook obvious flaws in fundamental story development in order to buy into it fully,” writes Vince Leo at QWipster’s Movie Reviews.
Pat Piper at Lazy Eye Theatre says, “To me the greatest question raised by The Game is not how did they pull everything off. It’s whether or not a series of traumatic events can truly change a man. The Game believes so as does A Christmas Carol. Of course it helps when we know that the man in question was good to begin with.”