The Game (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The Game
Original title The Game
The Game (film), Schriftzug.jpg
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1997
length 129 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director David Fincher
script John Brancato ,
Michael Ferris
production Ceán Chaffin ,
Steve Golin
music Howard Shore
camera Harris Savides
cut James Haygood
occupation
synchronization

The Game (German reference title: The Game - The Gift of His Life ) is an American thriller from 1997 . Directed by David Fincher and written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris . The main role played Michael Douglas .

action

Nicholas van Orton is a wealthy and tough investment banker from San Francisco , whose professional success has come at the expense of his private and family life - he's divorced and has little contact with his daughter and ex-wife. He rarely sees his younger brother Conrad either.

On his 48th birthday, Conrad suddenly appears and gives him a mysterious gift: a game offered by Consumer Recreation Services (CRS) that is supposed to change his life.

Reluctantly, Nicholas accepts the gift and has to undergo extensive physical and mental exams for a full day at a branch of the company under the guidance of employee Jim Feingold, only to be told by telephone the next day that he is not suitable for the game. He returns home angry at the lost time.

There the spokesperson for the television news told him that the game had already begun, which was focused on a traumatic experience in Nicholas' life: as a child, he had to witness his father's suicide at the time of his death, just as he is now , Was 48 years old.

The game puts Nicholas in increasingly dangerous situations, which deprive him of all the things that he has taken for granted in his life so far and lead him to suspect that this is a large-scale conspiracy . His house is searched and messed up. A hotel suite is booked under his name, in which he finds drugs and clear photos. He is sunk in a locked taxi in the harbor water and can only save himself at the last second. Nicholas is also cheated of his entire fortune. Throughout the game, he encounters people who are not what they say they are. His much younger brother initially seems to be in cahoots with the mysterious organization, then to be persecuted by it.

With Christine, whom he meets as a waitress, he initially experiences strange and adventurous incidents within a short period of time; at first it seems to help him escape from CRS, but ultimately stuns him and enables him to be kidnapped to Mexico. Drugged, he wakes up in a coffin from which he can free himself. Without money or ID, he manages to make his way to San Francisco with the help of strangers. There he made contact with his ex-wife Elizabeth. During a meeting with her, he accidentally discovers Feingold, who is obviously just an actor , in a television commercial . He forces Feingold at gunpoint to bring him to his operations center.

When, exhausted and completely desperate, he storms this branch of the company, he takes Christine, whom he meets there again, hostage. In a hail of bullets from security guards, he escapes with her to the roof of the skyscraper and demands clarification there. Christine freezes when she realizes that Nicholas has his own real weapon; Her company allegedly replaced all weapons he could get with harmless imitations. When the unflexed door suddenly opens, Nicholas shoots. The bullet hits his brother Conrad in the stomach, who was the first to come out of the door with a champagne bottle in a celebratory mood. Conrad collapses hit. The CRS employees are shocked. The dismay at what happened brings Nicholas to his limits.

In his hopelessness and tormented by severe remorse, Nicholas (like his father, who killed himself by jumping from the roof of his family residence) throws himself from the roof of the skyscraper. He falls through a lower-lying, manipulated safety glass roof and lands underneath on a huge air cushion, from which he is freed by the company's security guards and immediately examined by medical personnel. All of Nicholas' friends are already gathered around the air cushion. After getting back on his feet, he realizes his game has ended here. The amazement is literally written on his face. The crowd cheers Nicholas together with his brother who was believed dead.

At Nicholas' birthday party that followed, it turns out that CRS's dangerous adventures were planned down to the last detail. The gun Nicholas had shot at his brother was also tampered with . His fortune is still intact - the terrible event was actually just a game. His brother had given it to him as a present so that he would not degenerate into an "asshole". At the same time, he is also being cured of the trauma that his father threw himself off the roof and thus committed his own life. During the party, Nicholas looks for Christine. She is already on the way to another job in Australia. During a conversation in front of the taxi, it turns out that her real name is Claire. She invites Nicholas over for coffee at the airport - it remains to be seen whether he will accept and get into the taxi with her.

Production notes

Filoli Mansion

Polygram Filmed Entertainment , A&B Producoes, Lda. and Propaganda Films produced the film. The house of the Van Ortons in the film, the Filoli Mansion , is a listed historic villa from the beginning of the 20th century. It is located in California in the mountains between San José and San Francisco . The property has served as a backdrop for Hollywood films on several occasions. B. in George - Who came from the jungle . It was also a filming location for the pilot of the series The Denver Clan and was later shown in the opening credits of the series as the residence of the fictional Carrington family.

synchronization

The production was performed at Interopa film in Berlin after the dialogue book and the dialogue director Sven Hasper.

role actor speaker
Nicholas Van Orton Michael Douglas Volker Brandt
Christine / Claire Deborah Kara Unger Rebecca Völz
Conrad Van Orton Sean Penn Tobias Master
Jim Feingold / Lionel Fisher James Rebhorn Lothar Blumhagen
Anson Baer Armin Mueller-Stahl Gerhard Paul
Elizabeth Anna Katarina Evelyn Marron
Samuel Sutherland Peter Donat Christian Rode
Ted Gerry Becker Norbert Gescher
Victor Jarion Monroe Klaus Jepsen
Ilsa Carroll Baker Almut Eggert
Maria Elizabeth Dennehy Katharina Koschny
Nikko Hotel Manager Yuji Okumoto Johannes Berenz
Private detective Mark Boone Junior Tilo Schmitz
Paramedic Galliano Michael Massee Erich Rauker

music

The following titles are played in the film:

  • Happy Birthday to you
  • House of Pain - Walter Afanasieff
  • In the mall
  • Icy Blue - Vise Grip & The Ambassadors
  • Hiawatha's Lullaby - The Red Clay Ramblers
  • Elevator song
  • Clair de Lune - Chet Swiatkowski
  • Liar's Moon - Vise Grip & The Ambassadors
  • White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
  • Call Me - The New Classic Singers
  • Hollow - Matthew Sweet
  • Take Me Baby - Dave Crimmen
  • Java Headed Woman - The Rhythm Lords
  • Going Out of My Head - Willie Bobo
  • Teresa Teng Selection
  • Life Goes to a Party - Vise Grip & The Ambassadors
  • The Best Is Yet to Come - Vise Grip & The Ambassadors
  • Room 277
  • Film music from killer tracks (in between)

reception

criticism

The Game was released in US and Canadian theaters on September 19, 1997. In the United States alone, the film grossed approximately $ 48 million. In Germany, where the film opened on November 24, 1997, it was seen approximately 1.21 million times.

The majority of the critics received the film positively. In the Chicago Sun-Times , for example, Roger Ebert praised the plot for being unpredictable, intelligent and sophisticated and that Michael Douglas was the right actor for the role.

“From a formal point of view, the fast-paced and exciting film is an artistically stylized piece of adventure cinema that has been consistently developed in terms of visual design and surprise dramaturgy. It becomes questionable where it legitimizes the manipulation and external determination of a person without distance and finally even presents this as a drastic possibility of a therapeutic 'healing'. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

The film was nominated for the 1998 Saturn Award for Best Thriller / Adventure / Action Film, but had to admit defeat to LA Confidential .

The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.

literature

  • Jeff Rovin: The Game. Wilhelm Heyne, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-13629-2 . (Novel for the film based on the script by John Brancato and Michael Ferris)
  • Stephan Zöller : Buried alive. Biography work in the cinema. In: Hermann Würdinger (Hrsg.): When life seeks interpretation. A workbook for preaching and catechesis. Erich Wewel, Donauwörth 2004, ISBN 3-87904-302-7 , pp. 158-161.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Game. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on September 18, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Soundtracks for The Game - The Gift of His Life. Internet Movie Database, accessed December 24, 2012 .
  3. ↑ InsideKino
  4. ^ The Game. In: Roger Ebert Movie Reviews. Chicago Sun-Times, September 19, 1997, accessed December 24, 2012 .
  5. ^ The Game. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used