Game 6 (2006)

Combining real and fictional events, Game 6 centers around the historic 1986 World Series and a day in the life of a playwright who skips opening night to watch the momentous game. Both Michael Keaton and Robert Downey Jr are very talented when it comes to superhero movies but that's about it because Game 6 is full of weird stuff, terrible acting and basically a plot and pacing that it's just boring the whole film is basically about Keaton a playwright that wants to see the 1986 World Series and Downey Junior's career was still in trouble back then and it's easy to see why to be honest this isn't just a bad film but it's also a boring one too.

'Game 6' is a yet another reminder of how GREAT Michael Keaton is as an actor. Delivering his best performance after Birdman & Clean and Sober, Keaton pitches in an unforgettable turn, thus proving to be at his finest!'Game 6' Synopsis: Combining real and fictional events, Game 6 centers around the historic 1986 World Series and a day in the life of a playwright who skips opening night to watch the momentous game.'Game 6', as a film, also is attention-grabbing. It has an interesting storyline, that has been translated into a fine film. It nicely blends its script, with the 1986 World Series as its wallpaper. Don DeLillo's Screenplay is a mix of drama & madness, but it makes good use of both the sides. I was intrigued by its characters, particularly the protagonist, portrayed by Keaton. Michael Hoffman's Direction is very good. Cinematography is accurate. Editing is razor-sharp, culminating the film within 84-minutes.Performance-Wise: Its Keaton all the way. Its a performance, purely dominated by sheer talent & commitment. Robert Downey Jr. is effective in his bit. Catherine O'Hara is impressive, as always. The Late/Great Roger Rees lends support. On the whole, 'Game 6' is a well-made film, with a strong performance by Keaton. Heavily Recommended!

For the first half hour I hated this. I thought it was a total dud, an esoteric Woody-Allen-ish stream of consciousness designed for hip NYC urbanites who exist in a world of $10-a-cup coffeehouses. I almost shut it off, but I stuck with it because it was a rainy day and the only other thing on TV was "Nacho Libre".I think it was the powerful scene with Harris Yulin (a great, underrated actor whose face appeared on practically every TV series in the 70s) portraying an over-the-hill stage actor with a 'parasite' in his brain. That scene snapped me to attention, and suddenly the entire movie began to fall into place. At about the same time, the plot shifts gears from neurotic Woody Allen to a suddenly darker, menacing and suspenseful tone. The story, the themes, the words & acting slowly gain momentum, paralleling the tense final innings of the World Series Game 6 which is shown concurrently with the action on screen.Indeed, I realized that this film is much like a baseball game with it's slow & usually uneventful start, slowly changing to a tense, passionate, heart-stopping experience as we go into extra innings. It reminded me a lot of the excellent Oliver Stone film "Talk Radio" with its minimal setting yet its power to bring our blood to a feverish high. By the time it was over, I realized that this innocuous little flick really packs a punch, in story, theme and technique.Imagine my astonishment when I learned that this film was done on a budget of 500k. To put that in perspective, consider that the average film has a budget of at least 10x that ("Crash" which won best picture in the same year 2005 had a budget of $6.5 million). But then I realized that the low budget was the reason why this movie was so effective. The budgetary limitations led the director & crew to use creative techniques which are what make this such a great film by any standards. You might miss it upon 1st viewing, but there are some subtle, surreal moments that give the film its unique style. For example, there's a scene in a bar where two characters are talking, and in the background keep an eye out for a NYC hazard team cleaning up an asbestos leak in slow motion. In the commentary, the director mentions that this was done simply because they couldn't afford to rent a bar set in downtown, so they had to shoot elsewhere & superimpose a plate glass window in post production. The slow motion background was an afterthought but a brilliant one which emphasizes the theme of asynchronicity & disconnection we see throughout. There are many such examples, but I'll leave them to you to discover.This film was an extremely satisfying experience for me. If you like films that are artistic, entertaining & challenging at the same time, you should definitely check this out. Similar movies are "Talk Radio", "Buffalo 66", "Adaptation", and the Japanese film "Shiki Jitsu", all worth watching.

I'm particularly fond of Don Delillo's novels and especially enamored with his dialogue. He has a way of writing conversations that defy logic and coherency and yet are totally enthralling in their own enigmatic way. He can turn a descriptive phrase too, but his dialogue has been a source of pleasure for me for a long time. It's pretentious, I think, but not in any way that grates. It's just wonderful. On a page, such pyrotechnics are superb. On the stage they fare less well (I'm not a fan of Delillo's dramatic works) and I was terrified how his writing style would translate to cinema. It doesn't, really, and I think I should probably not like this movie as much as I did. I should have hated it--the overt symbolism (the camera's dwelling on a sign that says Dead End for far too long at the beginning), the obvious structure (those interrupted cab rides), and the presence of Delillo's obsessions (baseball, disintegrating relationships, an airborne toxic event) all indicate an intelligent and literary man behind the scenes but they also point to someone who has, unfortunately, an all too great grasp of literary language rather than verbal language. And yet...And yet I was totally enthralled with the dialogue. It certainly helps to have three actors as talented as Michael Keaton, Griffin Dunne, and Robert Downey, Jr. What's more-- those actors have often played characters who must save themselves with words rather than heroics. They're just the people to play characters in a Don Delillo story. As a result, the arch-ness of the dialogue is lessened. Yes, it's entirely unrealistic, but having seen these actors before, you know that's how they act--they talk and talk and talk. It's perfect casting (especially Griffin Dunne, who returns, sort of, to territory he encountered in After Hours). There are also some pitch-perfect moments regarding baseball and baseball fan-dom. I enjoyed Fever Pitch, but Game 6 nails, as near as I can tell, the Red Sox obsession to a T. (Full disclosure: I'm a Yankees fan, so the pathology of a Red Sox fan is understood second hand.) Or maybe it nails the obsession with baseball in general--an obsession that I recognize in myself and my friends. I could understand the feeling that baseball was personal. It is, if you love it. I could understand Robert Downey's character when he talked about only watching highlights of the games because it killed him too much to sit through the up and downs of a game. It's excruciating to watch your team lose, moment by moment. It hurts less when it's been condensed into a one-minute segment. This film gets a lot of those aspects of being a baseball fan correct, and that was something to see. As for everything else? Well, the exploration of other facets of Nicky's character are far from perfect. His relationships with his family are far less convincing than his relationship with the Red Sox (though his relationship with his daughter comes close). I found the movie worked much better in its second-half, when it really dwells on the relationship of baseball and Nicky's life. Baseball is life, as he says--well, it's his life. Juxtaposing the Sox's failures and his own worked well. All in all, I thought the movie a minor major achievement. Delillo is a masterful literary artist, whose wonderful stories have great potential for the screen. He needs to rein in a few of his habits that are not exactly flattering before he'll write a cinematic masterpiece, though.