Play ĪThe Gameā for two hours

By Lisa Opsahl-Lang
The Metropolitan

Hollywood delivers a psychological pummeling with mental pimp slaps to keep the audience startled in The Game.

Director David Fincher, of Seven fame, creates another dark mystery filled with mental mazes, dark puzzles and smooches of biblical undertones. He winds together enigma, paranoia, action and jump-in-your-seat fright into a tetherball of entertainment that smacks right into your face.

This game involves uptight, super-rich investment banker Nicholas Van Orton, (played by Michael Douglas), who is celebrating his 48th birthday. Itās a landmark birthday for him because he will be the same age as his father was when he killed himself jumping off the roof of the family mansion.

Van Ortonās family and friends are concerned for him on this birthday because his fatherās death left him scarred. His insists heās OK, and he probably is as OK as anyone with a sucking wound in his psyche can be.

His black sheep brother Conrad (Sean Penn) gives him a special birthday gift, an invitation to something called

The Game. Van Orton is interested, but no one tells him what The Game is. He asks around, but gets no details, only that itās a profound life experience.

The Game is designed to be different for every player. Consumer Recreational Services, the company running

The Game, customizes it for each player. When Van Orton agrees to play it, he is given a battery of psychological tests, physicals and forms to sign. CRS informs him that heāll be called when his game is ready.

He gets the call, but the game starts off slow. He gets trapped in an elevator, heās given clues and keys, he is sent off a pier in a locked car, none of which seem to be profoundly life-changing. Van Orton starts to hate it, and decides to take legal action against CRS for attempted murder.

Then he finds that CRS is gone. The building where he took his tests is vacant, and no record of the company exists. The contracts he signed were written in invisible ink. But CRS is still out there, tormenting him and making his life hell.

When Van Orton starts to want out of his game, the danger increases. He realizes that heās trapped, and his life might be over.

The plot deepens, getting more and more mind-warping, winding up in a dramatic yet pat ending. Itās a relief when the film ends.

Fincher tells the whole film through Van Orton, limiting sound to what he hears, his own heartbeat, his own footsteps and blaring quiet that gives the audience Van Ortonās ears.

Memories of his past are seen as homemade 18mm film, complete with scratches and a yellow tint from the aging film. These devices suck the audience in, making them connect with Van Orton and adding to the filmās realism.