Michael Douglas plays 'The Game'

By Laksmi Pamuntjak

JAKARTA (JP): Have you ever been taught a lesson so hard that you don't end up wizened but very bitter instead? Well, it must be like that for Nicholas van Orton (Michael Douglas) in David Fincher's The Game, the latest movie to tap into the modern paranoia genre.

Just imagine this happening to you. You are a handsome, wealthy and powerful San Francisco investment banker. You are the kind of person only Douglas (see Wall Street, The American President) can play.

On your birthday, your smirking kid brother (Sean Penn) pays you a visit. He hands you a gift certificate from Consumer Recreation Services, an entertainment service that offers tailored live-action games to fulfill "whatever is missing from your life". Being Michael Douglas, who loves to be manipulated (see Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Disclosure), you are intrigued.

So you go to CRS and spend the whole day going through the screening process. Never mind that this doesn't make sense, given your no-nonsense nature and tight schedule (would Gordon Gekko ever do this?)

Then weird things start happening. A man lies dead on your driveway. CNN anchorman Daniel Schorr starts talking to you through your television screen. And, because you're Michael Douglas, there is the lure of a seductive blond woman (Deborah Kara Unger), whom you're not sure is friend or foe (remember Sharon Stone?).

But as you try to make sense of what's going on, you get plunged deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of wild chases and murder. Determining whether it's illusion or reality is like working on different jigsaw puzzles -- the pieces don't necessarily fit.

The grand concept -- fear, uncertainty, a sense of disestablishment -- is certainly worthy of Hitchcock. Is there a real attempt on van Orton's life? Or is it just one sick joke? As the billionaire gets hurtled from one deadly twist to another, our objective is to find out the objective of it all.

But because you are Michael Douglas, you can count on full audience sympathy. You have this preternatural ability to self- destruct just when you are on top of the world. You have this vulnerability that is oddly endearing.

Yes, we will root for Nicholas van Orton, even if the movie tries to tell us that he is a meanie who deserves his comeuppance, real or staged.

Unconvincing

So, we live The Game with van Orton and find ourselves asking the same questions he does. The mood is vintage Fincher: dark, oppressive, with a mean undercurrent threatening to erupt at the most unlikely places.

At the outset, it has all the trappings of Seven, the brilliant psychological thriller that established Fincher as one of Hollywood's most talented new directors. Yet, for all the suspense and intelligence promised, so little is delivered. Where does it go wrong?

The answer is simple. Beyond its provocative plot, The Game is hollow and unconvincing. It also runs out of steam fairly quickly. And when it does, Fincher resorts to insulting the audience's intelligence.

In fact, the entire script merely goes around in circles, not building toward a satisfactory and logical conclusion. The chilling enigma of the first hour disintegrates into repetitive episodes which serve no point other than turning the protagonist into a caricature. Plot holes spring from every direction as the luster of the unknown is replaced by the menace of the implausible.

Despite the plodding exposition, the movie also sheds surprisingly little on Van Orton.

We learn, very superficially, that he is rude (two scenes in a restaurant establish that); a loner (after his wife leaves him, his only companion is his loyal housekeeper) and a merciless money-grubber (a scene with Armin Mueller-Stahl as an ousted publisher takes care of that).

The only psychological insight we have is that he is traumatized by the suicide of his father.

Yet the movie quickly dumps this one important psychological insight as soon as it decides to pursue the "hellish roller coaster ride" angle (which is in fact how it is being advertised).

As for Michael Douglas, forget the randy jokes: anybody who can rouse himself in an absurd situation like this, take a few whompings and survive with a smile deserves all that hype.

Ultimately, however, The Game is too elaborate and improbable a hoax, and too far-fetched a reality. It wants to be both an unconventional thriller and a biting farce, but the grounds are too superfluous to do either justice. And just when the movie seems poised for a meaningful revelation, the "truth" suddenly spits into our faces and we feel cheated through and through.

What The Game is, at best, is manipulation for manipulation's sake. What it does, ultimately, is con us into thinking that a lesson which puts someone through living hell could possibly bring him spiritual salvation.

Does Van Orton change? Of course he does. Whereas previously he was happy enough raiding one corporation after another, he is now armed, dangerous and paranoid to boot. He won't only go back to his office and resume the accumulation of wealth, he will also distrust people even more and see conspiracy at every corner.

If you ask this critic, Van Orton's real comeuppance lies in those wretched nights of eating microwaved hamburgers alone in his ghostly mansion. He needs no pretentious games to show that money cannot buy everything. And David Fincher could have saved himself the cost of a movie.