Surviving the Game - Tötet ihn!

I just saw this movie for the first time since it's release in 1994 and while it's not as good as what I initially remembered it to be, it's still a decent popcorn flick to watch when there's nothing else on (which is usually most days of the week).

The basic premise for the film is a pretty good - yet simple - one (even if it's not all that original now) and asks the question - can a homeless man put his "street-smart" knowledge to good use and survive being hunted if put into the wilderness? Well, that's exactly what ends up happening to Jack Mason (Ice-T)...a man who's been surviving on the streets but is given an opportunity at a job to help out with a hunting party. Unbeknown to him, though, HE is the prey. Like I said, the premise is good, but is it realistic to think that a homeless person can survive in the wilds as well just because they are "street smart"? Maybe, maybe not, and probably the latter, but this isn't a film about realism....it's about entertainment and for the most part it does just that. It does get a bit predictable as well, but like I say, this film is about entertainment...not plot twists or a deeply thought-provoking story.

The cast is a pretty decent one as well, even if some of the performances are slightly OTT. However, it's not too bad and it's not enough to ruin the enjoyment of the movie. The main "culprit" of this is Gary Busey, but we all know what he was like when he was in movies...usually loud & in your face type of performances, and it's no different here. Also, love him or hate him, Ice-T does a decent job too as Jack Mason, and does a pretty convincing job of playing a down and out homeless guy who's got nothing left to live for.

The film is by no means a cinematic masterpiece, but it does it's job for about an hour and a half.

So if you don't mind films having some OTT performances and predictable story's that have a sprinkling of cheese, then you might enjoy Surviving The Game.

Surviving the Game came traipsing in a year after Jean-Claude Van Damme's much more popular Hard Target. Both films featured down-on-their-luck men being used as human prey for rich. bloodthirsty psycho's desperate for the thrill of the kill. Ice-T is a good actor, but not in this film he ain't. Though he still out-performs JCVD as the man on the lam.

T plays Jack Mason, a Seattle hobo plucked from the streets and given a job in the wilderness. Without asking any serious questions or growing suspicious he sheepishly accepts the offer. Upon arriving at a remote forest cabin (actually Lake Wenatchee Airport, if you don't mind me spoiling the magic) he meets a bunch of wealthy weirdos and is well fed and watered. When he wakes the next morning Mason discovers that his job is to run as fast as he can back to civilization.

Director Earnest Dickerson has no control over his cast and allows them to overact to ludicrous degrees. F. Murray Abraham, Oscar or no Oscar, has no idea what he's doing. Gary Busey turns up, goes mental, and then exits (a stupid mistake as he's the most interesting character). John C. McGinley goes over the edge with the minimal of back-story, which only just starts getting interesting before he too exits. It's like they actually wanted to strip the film of any engaging substance.

They try to inject some kind of subtext with the character names. Mason is the everyday working man. He is hunted by men called Hawkins, Griffin, Mr. Wolf and Wolf Jnr. He is employed by men called Cole and Burns, and taken to a place called Hell's Canyon. If writer Eric Bernt was trying to be clever it's lost in the bumbling incompetence that cripples the action scenes.

The whole film is shot like a cheap TV movie, which is twice a let-down as Dickerson himself is a former cinematographer who really ought to know better. The editing is a joke (dead characters mysteriously reappear in some shots as well as the fact that both day AND night seem to last all of two minutes out in the wilderness). The dialogue is terrible, and frequently badly ADR-ed as a quick fix to the consistently poor narrative. A sense of place and location is apparently irrelevant...

What does STG have in its favor? Um...nice music and pleasant scenery. In a film with a wide cast of character actors playing psychos in a story that has been the inspiration for many other action movies that's a pretty disappointing couplet when you're trying hard to recommend it. Stewart Copeland's score IS very good though, and I'm surprised it's not on CD. And the lovely hills and mountains of the Pacific-Northwest will no doubt inspire you to go out for a summertime hike.

Surviving the Game could have been great, but is merely an incredibly dumb, badly-directed pot-boiler, and a massive guilty pleasure.

The "manhunt" action/suspense premise may perhaps be nearly as old as cinema itself, but it's also one that practically always guarantees a bloody good time! I've seen several film versions of the hunting-humans concept and loved them all; except for one (the abominable 60's bore "Bloodlust!"). Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack's original 30's classic "The Most Dangerous Game" undoubtedly remains the greatest version, but I particularly love how there exist numerous variations on the theme, like an excessively violent one set on a futuristic prison island ("Blood Camp Thatcher") or a super-sleazy one where they exclusively hunt scarcely dressed girls (Eddie Romero's "The Woman Hunt"). "Surviving the Game" is a rather rudimentary re-working of the premise, but nonetheless a very effective one with a downright awesome cast listing and a handful of genuine shocks. Jack Mason is an embittered and suicidal homeless man who loses his last will to live when both his dog and best friend in one day. The sly businessman Thomas Burns lures Mason to the wilderness with a false job promise, but instead he and his maniacal rich friends simply intend to hunt down Mason like an animal and kill him for sports. Mason may be suicidal, but he still wants to decide for himself when he dies, and so he successfully fights back. "Surviving the Game" is quite a gruesome and nihilistic-toned film; definitely not for people with vulnerable stomachs. The violence is pretty gratuitous and served without any form of morality, but what else do you expect from a B-movie. As indicated above, the film's main trump is the cast and particularly because each and every cool actor depicts a marvelously eccentric character. I can't even pick a favorite performance between F. Murray Abraham (as a sinister Wall Street big shot), Gary Busey (as an out-and-out deranged FBI psychiatrist), the overacting John C. McGinley (as a frustrated hunter with a vengeance) or of course Rutger Hauer as the mega-bastard. Ernest Dickerson – formerly a skilled cinematographer – does an admirable job directing his first long feature and he went on making the vastly entertaining Tales from the Crypt movie "Demon Knight". The forestry filming locations are impressive, the story doesn't contain any dull or unnecessary padding sequences and the level of suspense is continuously kept high. I don't know about you but that's everything I look for in an action movie.

Entertaining movie, especially for the fans of the short story, The Most Dangerous Game. Rapper/Actor Ice-T (Richochet, New Jack City) is a homeless man hired by a bunch of rich people to help them in their hunt. Soon he realizes that he is the prey. The rich hunters are led by Rutger Hauer (Nighthawks, Mr. Stich). The hunters are equipped with different types of guns and smaller vehicles, while Ice-T is forced to use his street smarts to beat them in the secluded wilderness. The other hunters include Gary Busey (Point Break, Lost Highway), F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus, Mimic), Charles S. Dutton (Rudy, Alien 3), and John McGilney (The Rock, Nothing To Lose). This is a fast paced movie, although the first half hour is mainly character development for Ice-T. It is very entertaining, the script's dialogue is fairly poor, but who cares in an action movie. Ice-T does a good job at making you want him to win. Rutger Hauer, Charles S. Dutton, F. Murray Abraham are all good at being evil, but the best performance of the bad guys is John McGilney who has an extra reason to want to kill a homeless man. The movie is a solid hour and a half of entertainment, but don't be expecting anything more.

Beverage guy Ice T plays a down and out "bum" that is given a job to help a group of guys at a hunting lodge...or so he thinks. In reality, he is to be the prey. Surviving the Game is a reworking of the timeless classic story by Richard Connell "The Most Dangerous Game." Ice T ends up running from this group of selfish, arrogant, and sadistic killers that feel no remorse or shame for killing this man because he is a homeless vagrant. He matches wits with his opponents and then some. This film can best be described as entertainment. It isn't full of great acting..the acting is acceptable with a few good performances out of Rutger Hauer(Man this guy can be scary) and Charles Dutton. The rest are merely adequate...a means to develop the plot and move things along. The story is pretty good but has some flaws, but the film is full of action and suspense.