Sopravvivere al gioco

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.

There are a few effective concepts in action films which are used over and over again. "Surviving the Game" uses one which was over 60 years old when the movie was made and still works like a charm. Made in 1932, "The Most Dangerous Game" is a movie about a group of people who are hunted for sport. Over the years this concept has been successfully used in big films like John Woo's "Hard Target" (which premiered less than a year before this film) as well as in DTV-films like the Lorenzo Lamas-actioner "Final Round".

The formula works. Although these films rarely offer anything new (you pretty much know the ending before the film has even started), they are very entertaining if the hero is someone who you want to win and the villains are suitably evil. "Surviving the Game" fills this order and throws in some energetic action sequences directed by Ernest R. Dickerson (I also enjoyed his "Bulletproof" a lot).

Ice-T is the hero here. When the film starts, he has no money, no family, no friends and is ready to kill himself. But when he receives a job as a hunting guide from a wealthy businessman (played by Rutger Hauer), he wants to put his life in order again. But after a good meal where Ice meets the rest of the hunters (including Gary Busey and Charles Dutton), the hunt begins and he suddenly realizes that he's the prey. Now, he must use all his strength and wit to survive.

The cast is perfect. While there are no huge stars, these people know the genre and obviously had a great time filming this movie. And there isn't any fault in the production values either. There are beautiful sceneries, a good score by Stewart Copeland and some neat stunts. The script by Eric Bernt (Virtuosity, Romeo Must Die) creates some quite interesting villains and the dialogue, while not perfect, works reasonably well. Luckily Bernt knows that he's writing an action film and doesn't even try to include any deep relationships or hidden meanings in his script.

At the end of the day, this is a good action film which is guaranteed to entertain a fan of this genre for 90 minutes. It's not the best action film ever but it's definitely above-average. This one gets an 8.

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.

Released in 1994, Surviving the Game follows Mason, a down on his luck homeless man who after a botched suicide attempt is offered a job as a wilderness guide for a wealthy and enigmatic group of huntsmen, however when he arrives he discovers that he is in fact the one being hunted and the fight for survival ensues.

The movie had the unfortunate timing of being released about 5 months after the similarly themed and much bigger budgeted Hard Target so Surviving the Game went mostly ignored at the box office but did attract the odd bit of praise from a few critics such as Gene Siskel. Ice-T does a fantastic job in the lead of this action thriller bringing to the role hard edged cynicism with an undercurrent of repressed pain and sadness that's made his will to continue with his hardscrabble life more and more of a challenge. However this is still very much an action movie and what's an action movie without compelling villains? Luckily the film has its villains well taken care of as the hunting party is comprised of a veritable who's who of character actors such as Rutger Hauer, John C. McGinely, Charles S. Dutton, and even F. Murray Abraham playing their roles with intensity and enthusiasm to spare.

The action set pieces are also quite thrilling as we see Mason use his wits and surrounding environment to try to stay alive and maintain whatever advantage he can grasp over his would be killers. The movie unfortunately does lose a bit of momentum and credibility in its final twenty minutes thanks to some less than perfect staging(including a fight sequence that takes place in darkness that makes it very difficult to see what's going on), some sloppy editing work, and a final confrontation that doesn't give much explanation as to how a character made it from point A to B when not only was B very far away but he logically shouldn't have even know where B was.

But despite some hiccups , Surviving the Game is an effective and exciting chase movie with engaging performances and set pieces that makes it a welcome addition to the expansive list of films inspired by The Most Dangerous Game.

Well it looks like these guys had a lot of fun making this flick. The movie is unintentionally funny in many places, and the directing appears as haphazard as the plot. F Murray Abraham is perpetually dumb. Gary Busey is perpetually angry. If you like guns, explosions, and seeing bad guys getting wasted, this movie is for you.