PLOT - Nicholas Van Orton is a very wealthy San Francisco banker, but he is an absolute loner, even spending his birthday alone. In the year of his 48th birthday (the age his father committed suicide) his brother Conrad, who has gone long ago and surrendered to addictions of all kinds, suddenly returns and gives Nicholas a card giving him entry to unusual entertainment provided by something called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Giving up to curiosity, Nicholas visits CRS and all kinds of weird and bad things start to happen to him.
Review - This film was ruined for me by my own mind. From the moment the opening credits roll I found it impossible to switch off my mind from going "This is part of the game...well this is definately part of the game...OF COURSE this is part of the game...that's not part of the game...THIS HAS TO BE PART OF THE GAME". And that's fucking well annoying. If I could watch this film heavily sedated I would probably enjoy it. It ended up being liking watching a film for the first time with the directors commentary on, but with that commentary just being me trying to convince the me watching the film what was in the game and what wasnt in the game. It's just annoying. By the time I got to the end of the film, a very long film, and there was the big reveal about to what extent of the previous goings ons had been the games fault, I litterally couldnt give a shit. I stopped caring, the big climax, didnt care I just wanted my mind to stop.
The process of watching was like spending hours on a painting, obsesssing over it until you near the point of completion and then realising your obsession has rendered your painting meaningless so you take a bread knife to it and then lob it out the window in to traffic. But I couldnt do that because it was on skyplus and the box isnt mine, plus I've always had a good throwing arm (Tomlinscote sports day record for throwing a cricket ball), but I live quite far from the road, plus I live in a bungalow so the angles would make it difficult to reach traffic. You know, I could probably create some kind of slingshot, or I could leave my front door to get close enough so I could reach but these both take time so I would probably have calmed down by then.
One reason I didnt like this was also because it was based around a rich dude. If the life of an affluent banker is gonna be messed up, why the fuck would I care? Rich arsehole's brother pays for a company to mess around with the life of his rich arsehole brother, I'm not gonna care about this. It's like finding out someone choked on their truffles, and their champagne wasn't carbonated enough to dislodge the valuable fungi from their esophagus. I think I would have liked it a bit more if maybe it was a case of mistaken identity, or someone got involved accidentilly, but I guess not every film is gonna be North By Northwest. Rich folk making themselves feel better through paying extortionate amounts of money so people can turn their life in to an episode of 24, I can get 8 cans of Heineken for £7 and that makes me feel better.
Plus points, the score reminded me of the X-Files, so I quite liked that. That was kind of the only plus. Oh this makes it sound terrible, it probably wasnt. I just didnt care about the main character because in part it was Michael Douglas and in part because I'm being a class warrior, and then there is the fact I couldnt shut my brain up, and the second one isnt The Game's fault. I dont know, maybe you would like to watch this, I might watch again, it might be a grower, I suppose knowing the outcome I wouldnt have the terrible internal monologue going on when I see it, I would only have to deal with the fact I'm a generation too late to give a crap about anything to do with Michael Douglas apart from the fact he's married to one of the darling buds of may.
x!
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