House of Games
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | House of Games |
| Original title | House of Games |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1987 |
| length | 101 (shortened 95) minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 (shortened 12) |
| Rod | |
| Director | David Mamet |
| script | David Mamet |
| production | Michael Hausman |
| music | Alaric Jans |
| camera | Juan Ruiz Anchía |
| cut | Trudy Ship |
| occupation | |
| |
House of Games (Original title: House of Games ) is an American thriller from 1987 . Directed by David Mamet , who also wrote the script.
action
The psychiatrist Margaret Ford is a successful author, her bestseller is called Driven ("The Trieb"). She treats Billy Hahn, who tells her that he owes $ 25,000 in gambling to gangster Mike, who threatened to kill him. She tries to help him and meets Mike, who only has an actual promissory note for $ 800. He offers to let her have this if she helps him to watch his opponent at a poker game to see if he is playing with his ring, which Mike says is a sign of his bluffing. When this is the case, Mike then wants to wager $ 6,000 that he does not have, which is why Margaret vouches for him. Mike loses, however, the mood heats up dangerously and she is about to hand over the check when she notices that the opponent's threatening weapon is only a water pistol.
Margaret Ford discovers that the game and loud arguments were set up to cheat her out of the money. Mike apologizes to her and says it's not about anything personal , it's about business . Mike seems to like Margaret and shows her a few more cheating tricks with his cronies.
Ford has taken a liking to the thrill of the adventure and goes back to Mike and asks him to take her back. He takes the room key of a guest who says goodbye at a hotel reception and they spend the night there. By the time they leave the hotel, he seems to have almost forgotten a date for a new scam. Margaret wants to come and he takes her with him.
A "stranger" hotel guest goes to a taxi, gets in and leaves a suitcase on the side of the road in front of Mike and Margaret. Two visitors to the fair join them, and when Mike touches the suitcase to take it to the hotel as an honest finder, it opens and they notice that it is full of money. Back in the previous hotel room, they count $ 80,000. Margaret knows one of the trade fair visitors, as does the taxi driver, as Mike's accomplice. The other is said to become a victim of fraud by finally offering, after heated debates marked by mutual distrust, to go to his bank to get “clean” money as a deposit to the others for the suitcase that is to be concealed for a while. The fraudsters, at their destination, of course accept the suggestion, whereby Margaret is informed that the suitcase should be exchanged at the last moment by someone with counterfeit money.
Shortly before they are about to leave, Margaret sees the apparently armed stranger in the shower talking about an imminent arrest with a walkie talkie . She warns Mike and the accomplice, but the third anticipates their escape and identifies himself as a police officer. Margaret wants to flee and in a scramble at the door a shot is fired and the policeman goes to the ground with a bloody gunshot wound on his stomach - dead, as Mike and his accomplice confirm.
They flee the hotel with a stolen car, police officers are already standing in front of the entrance. They surely notice that the suitcase with the 80,000 dollars was probably left in the hotel. Since the money was borrowed from the mafia, Mike begs Margaret to help him out, which she does. The money is supposed to be returned to the mafia and then they all separate.
Margaret is a little upset by the events and wants - back home - to remove her blood-stained blouse and the documents on Billy Hahn, who at the same time personally cancels an appointment with her. On the way to the rubbish bin, she sees Hahn drive off with the car "stolen" from the hotel and now realizes that only she was the victim of a stolen game.
She follows Billy Hahn, overhears the gang in a bar and then watches Mike at the airport and wants to bait him with another $ 250,000. However, he notices a small mistake on her part and does not fall for it. He makes it clear to her that she will not get her money back. She then shoots him. She “forgives herself” and concludes with the story.
Reviews
Film-Dienst wrote that the film was a "cool and calm staged thriller" . He is "intelligent" and shows with "subtle black humor" "in an ironic way not only the fragility of bourgeois decency facades, but also the inadequacy of human perception and scientific thought models" .
The TV magazine prisma wrote: “The cool psychological thriller plays in a sovereign way with the expectations of the audience, who shouldn't always believe everything they see. With subtle, black humor, director and screenwriter David Mamet shows us that trapdoors that no one expected, not only for the characters in the film, keep popping up. "
Cinema wrote that the film was a "nifty thriller with trap-door dramaturgy" . He achieved "a tension that is sometimes reminiscent of Hitchcock " , but, unlike Hitchcock's films, " gives an ironic lesson to classical psychoanalysis" . The portrayals by Lindsay Crouse and Joe Mantegna are "excellent" .
Awards
In 1987 David Mamet won the Golden Osella at the Venice International Film Festival for the screenplay and the Pasinetti Award in the Best Film category . It was nominated for the Golden Globe Award in 1988 for Best Screenplay. In 1989 the film won the London Critics Circle Film Awards for Film of the Year and Mamet for screenwriter . In 2007 the film was nominated for the Satellite Award in the category Best Classic DVD .
The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.
backgrounds
The film was shot in Seattle . Its world premiere took place on August 29, 1987 at the Venice International Film Festival . The film grossed approximately 2.6 million in the cinemas of the United States dollar one.
Web links
- House of Games in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- House of Games at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ House of Games in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on August 29, 2008
- ↑ prisma.de , accessed on June 20, 2009
- ^ Cinema , accessed August 29, 2008
- ^ Filming locations for House of Games , accessed August 29, 2008
- ↑ Release dates for House of Games , accessed August 29, 2008
- ^ Box office / business for House of Games , accessed August 29, 2008