
DATE: Sunday, September 14, 1997            TAG: 9709130112

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E13  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   67 lines

DARKLY COMPLEX THRILLER ``GAME'' IS INTERESTING BUT LACKS PAYOFF

IS Michael Douglas obsessed with depressive paranoia? In ``The Game'' he plays yet another would-be victim. Presumably everyone, and everything, is against him.

He's played it before. He was the victim of a manipulating woman in ``Disclosure.'' There are those, depending on gender, who even felt that the wayward husband he played in ``Fatal Attraction'' was a victim. In ``Falling Down,'' a much better movie than ``The Game,'' he played a man who had all of urban life against him. Critics found it a disturbing satire on city evils, but the public roundly rejected it.

One suspects the same fate, but more deservedly, may be in store for ``The Game,'' a movie that is being marketed as a mainstream thriller but is actually a rather manipulative oddball.

Those who like it will like it a lot, but there will be hordes who will simply demand a bigger payoff for what is otherwise an interesting ride.

Nicolas Van Orton, the multi-millionaire investment banker Douglas plays, is a loner. He's divorced and childless. His only joy is in moving money around, and making more. For his 48th birthday, his quirky brother (Sean Penn, who has only three scenes) gives him a membership to something called Consumer Recreation Services. Is it a club? A spa? What? ``It will make your life fun,'' Penn tells him.

After he enrolls, simulated terrors begin to happen to Van Orton. After a while, they become real. He's trapped in an elevator, chased by angry dogs, threatened by machine gun fire, driven into San Francisco bay, drugged, left penniless in a Mexican graveyard, kidnapped, tortured, blackmailed, his house vandalized, and so on. It's a lot to lay on him, as well as an audience which is beaten into submission in the course of the two hours and five minutes running time.

It's all very dark and very stylishly filmed, as directed by David Fincher, but 30 minutes into the film you'll have enough time to ask, ``What's going on?'' Some 30 minutes later, you'll probably be thinking, ``There'd better be a payoff for all this.''

That's the trouble. There isn't. What sometimes makes us think of the Rock Hudson movie ``Seconds'' in its dark bargain-making ends up more like the flippancy of ``The Sting.''

We're immediately suspicious of Penn, the unsuccessful brother who has been away, possibly to a mental ward. But, then, we're encouraged to be suspicious of everyone, including Deborah Kara Unger, who is fine as a waitress who flees with Douglas and may or may not be on his side. The cast is uniformly fine, including Carroll Baker in a too-small role as the housekeeper. This is the same Carroll Baker who was once ``Baby Doll'' and Elizabeth Taylor's daughter in ``Giant.''

To those who are willing to just enjoy the ride, this is a genuinely dark and slick movie. After all, everyone initially thought director Fincher's ``Seven'' was too dark and too complex to be a hit. He might fool us again here. ILLUSTRATION: FILE photo

Michael Douglas plays a multi-millionaire investment banker whose

only joy is moving money around.

Graphic

MOVIE REVIEW

``The Game''

Cast: Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, James Rebhorn, Deborah Kara

Unger, Carroll Baker, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Peter Donat

Director: David Fincher

MPAA rating: R (mild violence, some language)

Mal's rating: 2 1/2 stars