Movie  1997
 The Game      Back      Home
Conrad: This is for you.
Nicholas: You shouldn't have.
Conrad: What do you get for the man who has... everything?
Nicholas: [reading card] "Consumer Recreation Services." Well, I do have golf clubs.
Conrad: Call that number.
Nicholas: Why?
Conrad: Make your life... fun.
Nicholas: Fun.
Conrad: You know what that is... uh, you've seen other people have it.
Nicholas: What's that?
Conrad: [signs document] This... is... the bill.
Nicholas: Do you want to split it?
Conrad: [exhales] Oh God yes! I'll take some of that...
[shows Nicholas enormous number at bottom of receipt]
Nicholas: [shocked look] Oh my God...
Nicholas: No, what is this? What are you... selling?
Jim Feingold: Oh. It's a game.
New Member Ted: This was the best one *ever*!
Jim Feingold: [shakes Nicholas's hand] You know, thank God you jumped, because if you didn't, I was supposed to throw you off!
Nicholas: I'm being toyed with by a bunch of depraved children
Samuel Sutherland: [Nicholas is making rounds at his birthday party] Nicholas, I haven't a *clue* what's going on, but your taste in champagne is excellent, as always.
Anson Baer: It was a *great* entrance!
Daniel Schorr: [on TV] There's a tiny camera looking at you right now.
Nicholas: That's impossible.
Daniel Schorr: You're right, impossible. You're having a conversation with your television.
Conrad: They fuck you and fuck you and fuck you, and just when you think it's over, that's when the real fucking begins!
Jim Feingold: The game is tailored specifically to each participant. Think of it as a great vacation, except you don't go to it, it comes to you.
Nicholas: [In the stopped elevator] I'll give you a boost.
Christine: You first.
Nicholas: This isn't an attempt to be gallant. If I don't lift you, how are you going to get there?
Christine: You pull me up.
Nicholas: It's much easier this way. Come on, step up...
Christine: No.
Nicholas: Please...
Christine: I'm not wearing underwear. Okay? There, I said it. Satisfied?
Nicholas: [Looks at her skirt] Oh. Fine.
[Nicholas van Orten loses a shoe when climbing a fire-escape ladder]
Nicholas: There goes a thousand dollars.
Christine: Your shoes cost a thousand dollars?
Nicholas: That one did.
Daniel Schorr: Discovering the object of the game *is* the object of the game.
[In a fancy restaurant]
Conrad: I've been here before.
Nicholas: I took you here for your birthday.
Conrad: No, I used to buy crystal meth from the Maitre D.
Jim Feingold: We're like an experiential Book-of-the-Month Club.
Nicholas: I don't care about the money. I'm pulling back the curtain. I want to meet the wizard.
Nicholas: Did I have a choice? Did I have a choice?
Nicholas: And you really believe that just because you publish children's books, people are going to care about my reputation? You can have pictures of me wearing nipple rings, butt-fucking Captain Kangaroo. The only thing they care about is the stock and whether that stock is up or down!
Conrad: They won't leave me alone! I'm a goddam human pi?ata!
Amazon.com
It's not quite as clever as it tries to be, but The Game does a tremendous job of presenting the story of a rigid control freak trapped in circumstances that are increasingly beyond his control. Michael Douglas plays a rich, divorced, and dreadful investment banker whose 48th birthday reminds him of his father's suicide at the same age. He's locked in the cage of his own misery until his rebellious younger brother (Sean Penn) presents him with a birthday invitation to play "The Game" (described as "an experiential Book of the Month Club")--a mysterious offering from a company called Consumer Recreation Services. Before he knows the game has even begun, Douglas is caught up in a series of unexplained events designed to strip him of his tenuous security and cast him into a maelstrom of chaos. How do you play a game that hasn't any rules? That's what Douglas has to figure out, and he can't always rely on his intelligence to form logic out of what's happening to him. Seemingly cast as the fall guy in a conspiracy thriller, he encounters a waitress (Deborah Unger) who may or may not be trustworthy, and nothing can be taken at face value in a world turned upside down. Douglas is great at conveying the sheer panic of his character's dilemma, and despite some lapses in credibility and an anticlimactic ending, The Game remains a thinking person's thriller that grabs and holds your attention. --Jeff Shannon