Rating: 
Summary: Twists and turns galore!!!
Review: Nicholas Van Orton ( Michael Douglas) is an extremely wealthy San Francisco banker who owns everything he could possibly want. Unfortunately, he is also extremely lonely, because he has no one to share it with. Nicholas is turning 48, and his strange and eccentric brother Conrad ( Sean Penn)wants to give Nicholas the perfect gift for his birthday. Conrad gives him an invitation to a company called Consumer Recreation Services, that specializes in creating games that are designed specifically for the participant. Unable to resist, Nicholas decides to go through with it. However, soon after Nicholas signs up, very strange and horrible things start to happen to him, which leads Nicholas to believe that the game he is involved in, will have him playing for his life."The Game" is without a doubt one of the most thrilling and suspenseful films I have ever seen. I was literally drawn into the film from beginning to end. Nothing is what it seems in this film. The end is perhaps the film's best feature because it is completely unpredictable. There are so many twists and turns, that the movie may appear confusing at times. But if you are willing to give the concentration and patience that is needed, watching The Game can be a very rewarding experience. Michael Douglas is an amazing actor, and it shows in this film. You legitimately come to feel for his character, because of how well he portrays the character breaking down. Watching Michael Douglas's character lose control of his life is frightening and somewhat amusing as well. Sean Penn, Deborah Unger, and the rest of the cast all do a great job as well. Overall, "The Game" is probably one of the best psychological thrillers ever made. The film is unpredictable and suspenseful from beginning to end, and the performances given from Michael Douglas and company could not have been better. My only advice with this film is that you be willing to pay attention and concentrate on what is going on. This is a film that you need to use your mind when watching.
Rating: 
Summary: Controlled Type A .........
Review: Last night I was surfing the channels trying to find something entertaining and found "The Game".....What I was immediately struck by was Douglas' close resemblance to his character in "Wall Street'....but in this film his personality, if you want to call it that, is much more restrained.
Stated simply, his life is essentially a boring repetition of getting up in the morning, eating breakfast in the kitchen with Elsa, his housekeeper, portrayed by Carol Baker, and going to work.....Enter his brother 'Connie', portrayed by Sean Penn, who introduces him to 'CRS'.....as a birthday gift....He is at home one night and decides that perhaps watching the stock market report is not challenging him anymore so the next day he heads to CRS....
The first thing I noted was despite his retrained personality, he allowed a group of people who he only knew as "CRS" to take him apart, psychologically and physically (they did allot of testing e.g. treadmill etc.)....he allowed this to happen even tho he could not find out what was the essence of 'the game'....I am adventurous but NOT to the point where I would allow that to happen....frankly find it hard to believe that an investment banker would just accept this kind of thing.
His adventures, as he gets further and further into 'the game', are what intrigued me. I will not state what the end was like because I feel it rude to do that.....However, I will say that it was refreshing to watch this all unfold..... "White Rabbit" was the theme song thru most of the film.....I think whoever selected that song was right on target because Alice suffered the same consequences when her curiosity got the best of her.......
Rating:
Summary: Does the plot matter?
Review: Having read about 60 of the reviews for this film, I can't believe no-one has offered the opinion that this film is basically a religious allegory - a sinner, whose disdain for other people shows in his attitude to his ex-wife, and brother - has taken away from him all that he possesses (or is possessed by). He is restored, redeemed if you will, by the mysterious operations of CRS. It seems fairly obvious.
Looked at like this, the plot and the ending (which seem to have outraged so many of the reviewers) don't call so much for a suspension of disbelief as a willingness to participate in the symbolic coherence of the allegory. I'm not a Christian, but I can admire the courage of a film that dares to push the narrative so far, and in such a direction.
Douglas is excellent as the central character hardly trying at all not to repeat the "fall" of his father (until CRS comes along), while Penn, to his enormous credit, makes a credible brother. Unger I like to think of as the presiding angel of the film, one who appears as a nuisance to Douglas, but leads him eventually through the shadows - and she does very well too.
One other thing - the score, by Howard Shore, is terrifically simple, plangent and tense by turns; the film would not please so much without it.
Rating:
Summary: We Provide Whatever's Lacking ...
Review: "The Game" stars Michael Douglas as Nicholas Van Orton, a wealthy San Francisco investment banker staidly running his financial empire. Nichola's estranged ne'er-do-well brother Conrad (played by Sean Penn) presents a birthday gift to 48-year-old Nicholas -- a paid membership to The Game. The Game is a chaotic intervention -- Murphy's Law applied proactively. Suddenly Nicholas' controlling lifestyle is flooded with annoyances and emergencies including embarrassing restaurant accidents, police encounters, questionable meetings in hotel rooms, armed mercenaries and a taxi ride off a pier into San Francisco Bay. Friends and associates become suspect as The Game drives Nicholas towards financial and personal ruin. Michael Douglas portrays powerful men well and his performance is excellent. And "The Game" portrays chaotic ruination effectively. But the 1997 plot of "The Game" is not original. Dan Ackroyd's film "Trading Places" included a comedic rendition of The Game. And the television series "Mission Impossible" starring Peter Graves, Martin Land au and Greg Morris had a similar theme -- use chaos to weaken and destroy targeted individuals. IMO the similarity between "The Game" and "Mission Impossible" suggests an interesting speculation: 'How did the Mission Impossible team stay sharp between Government missions?'
Rating:
Summary: Fincher at his best
Review: It's hard to compete with movies like Seven and Fight Club, but this movie is amazing all around. It's everything Fincher is good at: Dark humor, weird plot, and an ending that will blow your mind. This movie is worth every dime. Michael Douglas is fantastic as usual and Sean Penn (though he plays a limited role in the movie) does a wonderful job as well. Check out Fincher's other movies while you're at it.
Rating: 
Summary: oh boy
Review: Watching this movie gave me a migraine. Trick the man for his birthday, this movie is behind retarded.
Rating:
Summary: Michael Douglas in a confusing mind roller coaster !
Review: David Fincher, the director behind Se7en and Fight Club, makes an extravagant suspenseful thriller with The Game. The noir-ish theme from Se7en remains, but this isn't a story about a crime being uncovered; only The Game is about a crime in the making (or is it?)
Michael Douglas plays a successful rich businessman (an echo image of Gordon Gekko from Wall Street) who's haunted by his father's suicide. His life is typical; no adventures, just the same old, same old everyday. Things change when he recieves an unusual gift from his younger brother, played charmfully by Sean Penn. Nothing else should be said after this for I do not wish to ruin the plot if you haven't already seen it. But just to give you a glimpse, Michael Douglas' life turns very bumpy, dark, mysterious; in other words, it turns completely upside down in one of the worst nightmarish mind-boggling roller coaster trips any rich successful businessman stuck in a routine and haunted by his past could ever have! Very Recommended! A-
Rating:
Summary: GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
Review: THE GAME is definitely a director's movie. David Fincher (Seven, Panic Room, Fight Club) propels us into the nightmarish world of Michael Douglas' Scroogish investment banker. Nicholas is cold; lonely; bearing a lot of anguish over the suicide of his father, the seeming failure of his brother (Sean Penn in a rather small role, almost overacting, but tolerable). What in this movie is real and what is a game? The use of news commentator Daniel Schorr to set the rules for Douglas is very good, and unique. Deborah Kara Unger fills the role of Christine nicely, although sometimes she seems in a vague fog. Peter Donat as Douglas' lawyer is sturdy; James Rebhorn as the smarmy employee of CRS is also good.
The movie rests on Douglas' shoulders and thought it may be a combination of his other roles, he still does a commendable job in carrying the movie. It is bizarre, nightmarish, ominous and a director's triumph. Some of the things that go on toward the end of the movie and stretch the credibility factor, but I can't divulge those without spoiling the ending.
A good film, inventive and well done.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: I knew this movie had to be great before I even watched it because it is made by an excellent director and it is played by at least two wonderful actors.Michael Douglas and Sean Penn are brothers (lol) and Douglas plays the role of an unhappy businessman, anyways the movie starts with Douglas's birthday and it's then when he receives a mysterious present from his brother - so what he gets is a enrollement in CRS (Consumer Recreation Services) - a company which creates real life games for each individual.But as the game starts Douglas has every reason to get concerned about his wealth and his life as well.
A nail-bitting movie. Please watch it or own it so you can play "The Game" to your guests. It's a great movie.
Rating:
Summary: Gordon Gekko gets his comeuppance--big time!!!
Review: Less than a full year before A PERFECT MURDER (1998) was released, Michael Douglas starred in THE GAME (1997), which is not simply a Michael Douglas movie, it's a David Fincher film-and you know what that means! From a screenplay by John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris, THE GAME is classic Fincher: dark, mysterious and with a constant sense of brooding danger in which lets you know that somehow, somewhere, something is not quite kosher. In THE GAME, Douglas is Nicholas Van Orton; a man of great wealth and power and totally devoid of any human compassion (as evidenced by the cold and callous way in which he fires a longtime employee). If this sounds like Gordon Gekko to you, it's because Michael Douglas, at this stage in his career, plays cold callousness like no one else. Call it typecasting; I call it brilliant acting ability and being smart enough to stick with what works. However, Gordon Gekko in the legendary Oliver Stone-directed WALL STREET (1987) didn't have a younger brother; Nicholas Van Orton does. On Nick's 48th birthday (the same age at which his father died, hint hint), his black-sheep-of-the-family brother Conrad, as brilliantly played by Sean Penn, visits him in his sprawling, cherry-wood office and hands his older sibling his birthday present: a business card with the name Consumer Recreation Services (CRS) on it. "What is this," Nicholas cynically asks. The sly answer given by Penn is one of my favorite lines in the film, and one that tells us that his elder bro's life will never be the same, once he begins to play THE GAME. Along the way, Nicholas Van Orton encounters CRS and its primary spokesman (or so he thinks) Jim Feingold (played with disarming confidence by character actor James Rebhorn), a mouthy cocktail waitress (Deborah Kara Unger) who seems to hold the secret to THE GAME, and a spooky-looking full-size inanimate clown who appears to watch everything he does. Also along the way are near-brushes with death that culminate with Conrad Van Orton's tearful admission that he "didn't know what the $#@! he had gotten them into" when he had signed his brother up for THE GAME. But that's still just the beginning... Everyone is superbly cast in this film, including BABY DOLL (1956) herself, Carroll Baker, and the always-watchable Armin Mueller-Stahl. But the real star here is David Fincher; he is so adept at guiding us down a labyrinthic path of which only he knows the end, that all we can do is hang on and enjoy the rollercoaster ride on which he breathlessly takes us. He primarily relies on small, subtle signs of foreboding to generate suspense, as opposed to full-blown violence and gore. Although this is one of those films that relies on first-time viewers' lack of knowledge of what to expect, and thusly loses something on repeated viewings, it is still a very good film to re-visit on occasion, if only to experience Fincher's unique style (this film and A PERFECT MURDER are miles apart in this respect, believe me), Douglas and Penn's acting and the production values, which are first-rate. See and experience THE GAME for yourself. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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