The Deadly Game

When I came across the DVD for this movie at my local library, I hadn't even heard of it before. Without looking it up at the IMDb, I decided to give it a chance since it promised to be a crime movie filled with twists and turns. Even before getting to the end of the movie, I was regretting that I hadn't looked up the movie at the IMDb before deciding to watch it. I agree with most of the previous posters here that the movie simply isn't very good. It's filled with little action and suspense, and is instead padded with endless talk - and not very engaging talk. The main problem with the movie is that it is VERY confusing - even though I read the plot description off the back of the DVD case before watching the movie, it didn't take me long to get utterly mystified as to who was who and what was exactly going on. I guess the acting is competent, and the British backdrop does give the movie a different look and feel from Hollywood product. And the movie's production values are okay for what had to have been a small budget. But those things don't save the movie from being an utterly confusing bore.

I cannot recommend this movie. I am a fan of all the lead actors. All play their parts well but in this case, the sum is far less than the parts! It is a very complicated movie and I soon lost my way. If there was a clever plot to keep me entertained then I'm afraid it went over my head. My main criticism is that I was always aware that I was watching a movie. Not once was I drawn into and absorbed by the action. The dialogue was unoriginal and to some extent the overall outcome was quite predictable. Oh, and I hate it when a man suffers severe gunshot wounds but moves around apparently uninjured a few scenes later; the rest of us mere mortals spend a week or two semi-conscious in hospital! Nothing new in this movie; don't waste your money.

"All Things to All Men" is a film where the viewer has great expectation, based on the names of the veteran actors Gabriel Byrne, Rufus Sewell and Julian Sands. Unfortunately confused screenplay and edition does not help and this film frustrates any expectation. The deleted scenes in the Blu-Ray disc shows important parts that should have been included in the final cut. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "O Jogo Mortal" ("The Deadly Game")

A.K.A. The Deadly Game. Now and then you find a film with a great cast and wonder why you've never heard of it before. Here we have Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Toby Stephens and Rufus Sewell in a London gangster thriller.

Oh no, not another one!

But wait, this is a well produced, well shot film with a pretty good (if somewhat generic) score. And this is only 81 minutes long, so even if it's bad it'll be mercifully short, right?

Wrong.

I'd been watching 21 minutes when I checked the time, because I thought I must be half way through by now. Groan. So what's wrong with it? Well, the script. The story is completely unintelligible. Which means you feel like you've missed something all the way through, namely, the story. See, the main problem is that we don't know any of the characters in the film, so we don't care about them. Any of them. And there's no clearly definable hero or villain, so you don't know who to root for. And I like grey characters who aren't really good or bad, but you need a general focus or main character in a film, and this film just doesn't have one.

So you keep watching these characters you don't care about in a story you can't really figure out, especially as they keep referring to things you don't see but that appear to be germane to the plot, and pretty soon you are just willing it to all end. Drop a plane on them! Nuke the whole city! Just let it end!

And then it does, and you are left completely nonplussed, empty, devoid of any reaction other than relief that it's over. That's not the way thrillers are supposed to make you feel. You're supposed to be thrilled! You're supposed to have gone through some kind of cathartic emotional journey, with added visceral excitement. You're not supposed to be relieved the mental cruelty of a badly laid out jigsaw puzzle is finally in your cultural out-box. Phew!

I need to watch a great thriller. I might have to go back to my DVD collection.

When a movie I see on TV starts with the logo for popcornflix.com, I know that I likely can't count on too much appearing on IMDb, so I watch these movies more carefully to provide IMDb with as much information as I can. In this case it didn't help. I had no idea what was going on. A car blew up and a man in bed with a beautiful woman got a phone call. There were cops in London, some of whom were apparently corrupt, and a rich man who wanted to get his drug dealing son out of trouble. I think one of the cops may have gone undercover, but I'm not sure. I couldn't remember which person was which. There was a car chase which was pretty good. There was a chase on foot that was also somewhat exciting. London was interesting to look at, if that was where the movie was set. There was a fascinating futuristic glass-walled room high in the air that overlooked a river. The Thames?

I saw what looked like that scene from "Mission: Impossible", but if you enjoyed that scene, there's really nothing here. That sequence ends with rappelling down a building, but it's not a big deal. I remember one really good acting performance from Terence Maynard, who ended up being tougher than he looked at first.

Do I have any more to say? Not really.