Cast: Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, Charlize Theron, Clarence Williams III
Directed by John Frankenheimer
Cast: Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, Charlize Theron, Clarence Williams III
Directed by John Frankenheimer
As soon
as you find out that the movie's set around Christmas time, and the
main characters in the film are named "Rudy" and "Nick", you know
you're going to be in for a painfully bad time, and if you're looking
for a really bad film to make fun of,
REINDEER GAMES definitely delivers.
The ridiculous plot surrounds a car thief (the aforementioned Rudy) just getting out of the joint after six years, who assumes the identity of his recently shanked cellmate (the aforementioned Nick) in order to get some cheap thrills from Nick's penpal girlfriend, Ashley. Bad stuff happens when Ashley's brother and his gang of thugs kidnap Rudy in order to get information on how to stage an armed robbery at an Indian casino the real Nick used to work at.
Will the real John Frankenheimer please stand up? For every MANCHURAIN CANDIDATE and RONIN he directs, it seems there's an ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU or REINDEER GAMES to keep him from making a name for himself. Of course, laying blame on Frankenheimer alone for this infuriating fiasco just can't be done, because there's no way one person could have made a movie this bad all on his own.
Yes, blame also should be dealt heavily on screenwriter Ehren Kruger, who also wrote such gems of movie magic as SCREAM 3 and ARLINGTON ROAD. It must be said that his script isn't always predictable...at times the twists and turns are so far-fetched that you'd have to be either an idiot or genius to conceive of plot points this hard to swallow (and Kruger is no genius).
Then there's the terrible ensemble of actors, the worst of which is Ben Affleck himself, who in other films has been quite good but here is so uncharismatic and hammy in trying to spin off one-liners to no avail that most viewers will hope Sinise finally does everyone justice by capping his ass from the first smarmy smirk...Cary Grant he's not...or Lou Grant for that matter.
If
REINDEER GAMES succeeds at anything, it's in actually being
worse than the god-awful CHAIN REACTION in the
NORTH BY NORTHWEST action clone genre. It starts out by
hitting you on the head with a Stupid Stick and wailing away for the
duration, and will leave most viewers with a hangover from the sheer
idiocy of it all. If you're still intent on watching this film after
all of my warnings, be prepared to ask yourself the toughest of
questions: What did you shamefully waste the most after watching
REINDEER GAMES...your money or your time?
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