Sobrevivendo ao Jogo

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.

In one of our local video store chains, if a movie was considered morally objectionable it was emblazoned with a huge yellow sticker which proclaimed that it was 'Strictly over 18's'. To me, as a youngster, this was like showing a light bulb to a moth. By the time 'Surviving the Game' was released, I was already a seasoned Ice-T and Bodycount fan and so would happily devour any of the nonsensical films which he would associate himself with (a trait which still exists to a certain degree, albeit somewhat diminished at this stage – thanks a lot 'Leprechaun In Da Hood'). Those yellow stickers never failed me; they drew me to movies such as the Tom Savini remake of Night of the Living Dead (1990), Body Melt (1993) and Bad Taste (1987). The peculiar thing about 'Surviving the Game' was that it was only classified with a 15 certificate in the UK, but as I was growing up in Ireland and they had just introduced their own film classification system (one which still prohibits the release of many, many titles today*) one can only assume that they were being extra vigilant.

Such vigilance, however, was not displayed by any staff members at any of my frequented VHS rental outlets and so I was pretty much free to choose whatever I wanted and on one fine day I took the afternoon off school and retreated to my abode to wallow in some Ice-T based goodness.

I regret none of those actions and this all came flooding back when I re-watched STG last week. The first thing that struck me was the plethora of character actors on show, Charles S. Dutton, Ernest R. Dickerson, F. Murray Abraham, Gary Busey, Jack Mason, John C. 'Dr Cox' McGinley and Rutger Hauer all come out in force as a group of hunters in pursuit of the deadliest game of all…man.

The man in question is Jack Mason (Ice-T) a man battling his demons to the extent that he has lost everything, his wife, his child, his home. Now living rough on the streets of Seattle, he even loses his best friend when his dog is run over by a careless taxi driver in the first few minutes of the movie. The altercation with the driver brings Mason to the attention of Walter Cole (Dutton), a man posing as a charity worker, but who is in reality a recruitment officer for Thomas Burns (Hauer), an entrepreneur who facilitates the immoral bloodlusts of the rich and ethically vacuous Mason is brought to Burns' offices whereupon he is offered a job (with very little details provided), he reluctantly accepts and before he knows it, he's held up in a remote cabin in the wilderness with half a dozen of the most peculiar characters you're likely to see share a dinner together. It doesn't take long before their motives are made clear and Mason is cast out on his own, given a small head start before being tracked by the hunters.

Guess what? The hunters soon become the hunted and the tables get well and truly turned. OK, so it sounds dreadful and in many ways, it is. Yet, it is so enjoyably dreadful that you soon find yourself letting go and immersing yourself in Mason's plight. There is an intensity and a unique self-awareness which makes this stand out from similar movies and eventually, this makes this a remarkably endearing viewing experience.

It's violent without being excessively so, it has just the right amount of humour to maintain a suspension of disbelief and by the time comeuppance is delivered, you'll be cheering along. It was refreshing to see a strong African-American lead actor at the time and whist one wouldn't go as far as to call it ground-breaking in any sense of the word, that fact is certainly notable. Ice-T is quite far removed from his hip-hop persona and suits the crusty, dreadlocked role very well. Hauer and Busey are typically and wonderfully bonkers and the support of Abraham and McGinley are both worthy additions.

It was a pleasure to be reminded of a time when action movies could be so enjoyable and when character actors would partake in the movie without dominating it. Admittedly, the rush that I got for simply acquiring it wasn't there this time, but I think that was due to the lack of the yellow sticker.

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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.

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.

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.