The Game (1997)

A psychological thriller, a cat and mouse game, that is ultimately pointless.

Good but I might see another movie instead of watching this over again. Encountered a few loopholes in the story but only minor ones. Eversince Sean Penn showed up I know something's about to unfold orchestrated by him. Halfway through the film you'll figure out the plot, then it drives you away from your assumption but it trolls you hard at the very end like saying "Sucker! you were right from the beginning". Of all the movies by Mr Fincher this has to be the most predictable twist.And yes that Neo-Noir score was kind of overused. It adds up really well with the tension and mystery element but it went stale and saturated overtime.Just a few of my gripes. Overall, still a watchable movie esp if you want to see David Fincher's early takes with the Mystery/Thriller genre.

Yeah it got me going for a little while there, thought this one was nicely building to one of those movies that plays deftly with the mind of both protagonist and viewer. A lot of you guys were fooled too considering the rating - this thing averages near 8/10, are you serious?Boy oh boy that ending... I don't ever remember an ending of a film so badly souring everything that's gone before. Wicker Man & the first "It" adaptation come close... "It" disappoints while "Wicker Man" through laziness ruins everything that comes before (and the dumb ones in the audience think it's being clever). But this ending takes the cake. So they knew exactly how this guy would react, in a moment of extreme emotional torment, because humans are so predictable at the best of times, let alone under extreme emotional duress. They knew he would shoot, they knew he would jump. They knew precisely what part of the building ledge he would jump off, to the point they could plan where to put the big canopy to catch him. The ledge was a pretty wide ledge, had to be dozens of feet on one side, dozens on the other, but hey, they knew exactly what part he'd jump off. They trusted that he would land like a pro stunt man, on his back, not on his head, which would still have broken his neck, soft landing pad or no.And, um, the company doing all this... what the heck do they charge? The budget for this kind of ridiculous service would be many millions, so you're saying a skeptical Michael Douglas agreed to pay this before knowing what he was getting? And the company wasn't worried about being sued by a rich client if something went wrong, which, with this absurd set up and the risks involved, easily could have?Michael Douglas was good, which shouldn't surprise since he's playing more or less the same character he's played in nearly every film, the unsmiling corporate head honcho type. I gave it an extra star for that. This could have been a good movie if they had been willing to come to a different conclusion somehow, maybe something a bit more metaphysical, but then you might have confused a few of the stupider viewers, and as we can all see, those outnumber the rest of us. So you have to keep the cattle happy with junk like this. Enjoy. Moo, moo.

'The Game (1997)' is all about the moment, being placed in the shoes of the protagonist and doubting everything you see just as he does, and it works remarkably well considering it has more twists and turns than a country lane. Its various reveals always work because it has the remarkable ability to predict exactly what its audience is thinking and to be two steps ahead of them even when they think they are two steps ahead of it, and it is this underlying intelligence that prevents the flick from feeling cheap or frustrating in any way other than one which would enhance our connection with the core character and strap us in for a mind-game almost like no other. 7/10