The Game **** (1997, Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, James Rebhorn, Deborah Kara Unger, Peter Donat, Carroll Baker) – Classic Movie Review 10,401

Director David Fincher’s exciting and stylish 1997 American puzzle thriller The Game stars an ideally cast Michael Douglas as very wealthy San Francisco investment banker Nicholas Van Orton, given a mysterious gift for his 48th birthday (the age his father committed suicide) by his addicted younger brother Conrad (Sean Penn) – participation in a game provided by ‘Consumer Recreation Services’ that integrates in weird ways with his everyday life.

Then hints of a large conspiracy start to become apparent as the lines between the banker’s actual life and the fantasy game become increasingly blurred and bad things begin to happen to him.

The Game started as a spec screenplay, written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris in 1991 but was eventually produced by Propaganda Films and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment in 1997.

Fincher’s skill and Douglas’s masterly performance, plus cinematographer Harris Savides’s smart Technicolor visuals, keep The Game twisty and gripping for its 129 minutes. Fincher provides considerable high-level suspense and mystery, as well as some thrilling sequences, and the high budget shows satisfyingly on screen. Principal photography began on location in San Francisco, including Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, and the historic Filoli Mansion in Woodside (as the Van Orton mansion).

The success of Fincher’s Seven helped the producers of get the larger budget of $70 million that they wanted and then they approached Douglas to star.

Douglas recalled: ‘I think what I’m most proud about is that it’s one of the very few movies that you could not guess the ending. It was an extremely tough shoot. It was very long, a lot of nights. I thought it was a really well-made picture, very unpredictable.’

Fincher recalled: ‘We didn’t figure out the third act, and it was my fault, because I thought if you could just keep your foot on the throttle it would be liberating and funny.’

Also in the cast are James Rebhorn as Jim Feingold, Deborah Kara Unger as Christine/Claire, Peter Donat as Samuel Sutherland, Carroll Baker as Ilsa, Armin Mueller-Stahl as Anson Baer, Anna Katarina as Elizabeth, Charles Martinet as Nicholas’ father, Mark Boone Junior as Shady Private Investigator, Tommy Flanagan as Solicitor/ Taxi Driver, Spike Jonze as Airbag EMT Beltran, Linda Manz as Amy, and Daniel Schorr as himself (newscaster).

It was released on 12 September 1997 and made a worldwide total of $109.4 million.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,401

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