The Game (1997)

Have you always wanted to give a birthday present that will last a life time!? The Game is what you are looking for.

Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) a wealthy investment banker is an embittered loner, having only himself to care for. His wayward brother Conrad (Sean Penn) gives him a one- of- a- kind gift on his 48 Th birthday, a day which brings back to him taunting memories of his father. The gift is intended to make Nicholas take a step outside his regular life and meet adventure eye to eye.

Nicholas walks into the Game without his knowledge and becomes an active player in the scheme of things. In the course of the game, he is merely a mute witness, as he watches things he valued the most tumble. Realization over his ways takes him over. But the game is yet to be played, and Nicholas has too many things that have to be salvaged out of this game.

Douglas lends the character the intensity it demands with nonchalance that gives Nicholas the air of arrogance mingled with shades of remorse. Deborah Kara Unger with her nimble portrayal as Christine leads Nicholas through the mind numbing chase of the unknown, ostensibly to help him. While Sean Penn as younger brother ‘Connie’ is ebullient and lights up the screen with his spiritedness. All characters lend the story the credibility to make the audience believe in the bizarre turn of events.

The film, treated in director David Fincher’s classic noir style where, despair, remorse and the will to rise above it all becomes the core of the film. The fact that the audience is as clueless as the protagonist about the game, gives you a feeling of being sucked in a whirlpool- helpless but having to swirl with the madness around, leaving you wondering about the way out.

In the 2 hours of the film, you‘ll find how a roll of dice, a pawn, a board with infinite boundaries, a lot of futile strategies and no rules to play by, lets you emerge a winner while showing you what you could’ve lost.