Fair Game

I don't know what movie the one reviewer saw, but it is clear from this that Ms. Styler is NO actress. Maybe the work she has done in other films is decent, but I have yet to see it or find the other films.

This one, on the other hand is awful: weak plot, weak characters, bad cinematography, and horrible dialogue. Not worth the price of the rental no matter HOW tempting the 99 cent rack may be....."Return of the Killer Tomatoes" was money better spent than this.

The gist of the story: Video game inventor takes revenge out on girlfriend who left him by trapping her in her loft/building/house with a deadly mamba.

Parts of this are so ridiculous that I find it difficult to type them: this guy (Greg Henry) injects the snake with it's own hormones to make it produce more venom. This apparently will make the snake more aggressive and therefore, more willing to hunt for a victim to drain the poison into......uh.....yeah, sure......what EVER! I guess the moron writing the script couldn't be bothered to pick up the "Idiot's guide to basic knowledge of herpetology" or even turn on the t.v. to catch a couple of Steve Irwin's misadventures into the snake world to know that this cannot happen.....but I digress. When Trudie's character does realize she has a cold blooded guest in the house, her methods of protecting herself look like slap-stick - and one need not look too deep to see that the homely Mrs. Sting seems a little TOO enthused about her self (i.e. - conceited - I understand that as an actor one must pose, preen and emote to the lens, but Jeez lady, get over yourself!).

Another factoid that is laughable in this disaster and poor excuse of a movie is the way she affords her rather spacious and expensive looking digs: she makes Play-Dough sculptures - that's right, boys and girls: PLAY-DOUGH SCULPTURES - for kids. And her work is anything but inspiring, let me tell ya'.

Her running around the loft/house/warehouse home of hers, running from the snake as if it were a machete wielding Jason has it's hilarious moments, all unintentional by the way, but the ending is a real screamer....check this out only when you hate yourself, but not enough to commit Hari-Kari.

It's a concise, yet mildly exciting close quarters psychological/deadly animal-on-the-loose thriller that puts to good use its short running time. After the humid, nihilistic set-up involving Bill Moseley (snake handler) and a domineering Gregg Henry in seamy, heartless mode collecting/and testing out his newly acquired mamba. There it moves onto young headstrong sculptress Eva (performed with ticker by Trudie Styler) soon to be ex-wife to Gene (Gregg Henry). She wants to break away from his emotional abuse, but he wants to finish things off on his terms... revenge. His plan is to seal off her windowless loft and unknowingly to her release a steroid-injected mamba, as he sits outside in his car getting his rocks off watching the mamba hunt its prey on a tracking device from his lap-top monitor. The lengths this vindictive man would go to can be seen as a power trip showing that his strike is just as lethal, if not deadlier than the snake.

A very elaborate, although not foolproof get-up... I guess cheaper, and less humiliating than a divorce? Styler's character escapes a trapped relationship thinking that it's all behind her, but finds herself literally caught in another enclosed battle. This time survival against a killer she can't see, let alone catch without thinking of the life threatening dangers. In a way it's a waiting game as she spends a good amount of time unaware of the threat, poking and prodding about, leading to set-piece after set-piece of close shave encounters. Plenty of POV shots, low angles, high angles and tracking shots. It's sleekly executed. An outstanding music score seperates itself from the norm giving out an uncanny jungle vibe with the squealing monkey sounds when the snake is on the move. Once she finds out she's not alone in the apartment is when it really clicks into gear. The fear, panic and alertness is amplified, as the snake could be lurking around every shadow and round every corner. One strike and you're done. The space seems to close in even more, claustrophobic suspense arises as she must fight back, not knowing there's a time limit to this madness. All she knows is that she's a target and there's no escaping it.

The idea is frightening, but I don't think the (stretched out) premise fully tapped into the situational suspense and adrenaline boost consistently enough. You just know how it's going to end, poetic justice is oh so sweet.

All's fair in love and murder, apparently, as a man attempts to kill his ex-wife through use of a modified exotic, poisonous snake. The man, some computer bigwig, plants a tracker on both the snake and the woman so he can view their proximity to each other while he waits outside in his car. To ensure that his wife not escape, he jams her door (apparently she only has one?) and taps into her phone which allows him to periodically call in to make sure she's still alive.

Fair Game probably has one of the most interesting premises I've seen in a while but, due to only having one real potential victim, it gets bogged down by a ton of false scares. You keep seeing the snake seemingly draw near or think it's going to pop out only for the woman to miss it entirely. Humorously, she goes a fairly long while before she realizes it's even in the studio apartment with her. After that, the woman's paranoia causes her to act out in increasingly bizarre ways as he panics.

Long before Kill Bill popularized the black mamba, it was being used as the exotic snake of choice in this movie. In retrospect, it's actually a huge step up from other films which favored things like cobras. I suppose it's just one more thing that sets this movie apart. Trudie Styler, the intended victim, gives a very witty, neurotic performance that will endear her to some while likely annoying others. This level of weirdness, however, may make the viewer question why she'd be the one to leave the relationship >_> Gregg Henry, her would-be killer, plays the role rather stoically and has few bits of dialog to speak of. He essentially serves as a background piece, a catalyst for this fateful encounter. The real action remains squarely between the girl and the snake. More interesting than either the male or female leads is the brief cameo by Bill Moseley, who ironically is the only cast member to really do much with the rest of his career (one that's spanned numerous horror films, might I add).

The title refers to the notion that the man is giving his ex-wife a chance of survival. The snake, which has been doctored with some chemical that makes it both hyper-aggressive and more toxic but also means that it will die on its own in an hour, is a less than perfect execution method. The concept kind of justifies the rather bizarre attempt on her life, although the story still slightly pushes the boundaries of credulity. If the movie has one real fault it would be that very little happens at first but once things start happening it quickly loses the shock value and gets fairly campy.

"Fair Game" or "Mamba", which is the less imaginative but apparently official title for this film, actually is the simplified and much more straightforward version of the British early 80's thriller "Venom" starring Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski. That movie revolves on petty criminals facing the threat of a venomous black mamba snake whilst trying to take hostage the sickly son of a rich family. It's a fun but incredibly far-fetched (the mamba ended up in the house through an "accidental" wrong delivery) film and the script is over-ambitious for its own good, with police forces surrounding the house and virulent intrigues between the kidnappers mutually, whereas basically it should have just been a claustrophobic lethal-snake-on-the-loose suspense movie. Mario Orfini, writer/director of "Fair Game" and of course an Italian, obviously saw "Venom" as well and immediately realized that only the escaped snake formula is more than enough to attract horror audiences. The rudimentary plot of "Fair Game" is reasonably effective just because of its simplicity, and it's merely the details and character drawings that cause major disbelief. Gregg Henry ("Body Double", "Slither") is almost too good as the frustrated and seriously deranged ex-husband who can't process the separation from the joyous artist/play-dough sculptor Eva. What do you expect? If you compare their personalities, they must have formed a terrible mismatch of a couple since day one! So, what's a lunatic video game designer to do? He buys a mamba, kills the seller, injects the animal with hormones to make her even deadlier and finally lets it loose in Eva's hermetically sealed flat without windows. She faces a virulent battle with the slithering dose of venom whilst the psychopath watches everything in his car via a computer-designed game. "Fair Game" naturally is a highly improbable thriller, of course, but the approaching snake sequences are undeniably suspenseful. The score and sound-effects, although inspired by the legendary "Psycho" shower sequence noises, are terrific and the film contains approximately 30 ingenious POV shots, even though admittedly they serve more to provide glorious shots of Trudie Styler's bottom. Speaking of which, Mrs. Sting proves herself to be a very untalented actress but, in all fairness, performing all alone with just a not-so-talkative animal in the room isn't exactly the most grateful role you can get. The script is full of ludicrous little details and the finale is extremely forced and implausible. Interesting little detail for horror fanatics surely is that Bill Moseley forms the entire supportive cast all by himself in his second 'important' role after starring in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II".

This is a stunningly bad film, certainly the worst and most inept I've ever had the misfortune to sit through. The acting and direction are not even professional and the script makes no sense at all. It's hard to understand how the video was accepted for mass distribution, there really is no artistic merit at all.