Surviving the Game (1994) – Review

A film where a bunch of white rich assholes chase a black man through the woods is an entry that is already on very shaky ground but New Line Cinema was not the kind of studio to shy away from such a controversial subject, nor were they known for thoughtful subtext or even text for that matter. Thus, we get this particular strange outing that pits Ice-T against Rutger Hauer.

The premise? Oh, it’s a gem. In this outing we have Ice-T playing a homeless man who’s down on his luck and gets roped into a twisted game of cat and mouse by a group of wealthy thrill-seekers, led by the diabolically cheesy Rutger Hauer. It’s like Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” meets a budget version of Die Hard with a side of campy ’90s flair. The hero of this movie is the aforementioned homeless man Jack Mason (Ice-T) who becomes despondent when he loses his only friends, fellow homeless man Hank (Jeff Corey) and his pet dog, but just as he is about to commit suicide a volunteer soup kitchen worker, Walter Cole (Charles S. Dutton), stops him and suggests that he go and see his partner Thomas Burns (Rutger Hauer) about taking a job as a hunting guide.

 

“I see from your resume that you don’t have a resume.”

Mason takes the job and is flown out to a remote cabin surrounded by hundreds of acres of deep woods, where he meets the men that he will be “guiding” on this hunt. In addition to Burns and Cole, the party includes Doc Hawkins (Gary Busey), the founder of the hunt and a psychiatrist, Texas “oil man” John Griffin (John C. McGinley), and wealthy Wall Street executive Derek Wolfe Sr. (F. Murray Abraham) and his son Derek Wolfe Jr. (William McNamara), the latter of whom is at first unaware of the true purposes of the hunt. As this is an adaptation of Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” it is quickly revealed that each of these men has paid $50,000 for the privilege to hunt a man and that man is, of course, the idiot Jack Mason who thought his expertise as a street person would somehow translate to that of a wilderness hunting guide.

 

Law and Order: Special Dumb Unit.

What follows is your standard stuff, with Jack Mason turning out to be more resourceful than expected and the overconfident hunters getting picked off one by one, as if they were sexually charged teenagers in a Friday the 13th movie. Unfortunately for us, his resourcefulness only works because the men chasing him are complete idiots and terrible shots. This leads to some fairly uninteresting clashes in the woods as our hero runs from one set of bushes to the next while the rich asshats bumble around. And we are left with such questions as “Can you really track a man through the woods while driving an ATV at 60 mph?” This movie does sport a talented cast, even including Oscar-winning actors like F. Murray Abraham, but aside from Gary Busey who is a lot of fun here, the rest seem to be in paycheck-cashing mode.

 

The Mortgage Payment Theatre Troupe.

Stray Observations:

• The idea of rich assholes hunting homeless people had already been a year earlier in the John Woo film Hard Target with Jean-Claude Van Damme.
• While dumpster diving, Mason finds a handgun and pockets it, hoping to get at least $20 bucks for it, not once thinking he could be carrying around a weapon used in a crime.
• Charles S. Dutton plays the most aggressive soup kitchen worker I’ve ever seen. Mason simply walks by his 7th Street Mission yet the man stalks him down the street practically demanding he take a job from his partner, one that he isn’t remotely qualified for. Not a big red flag at all.
• Actor John C. McGinley is no stranger to playing assholes who hunt men through the wilderness. The very same year that this film came out he was in Steven Seagal’s “classic” On Deadly Ground.
• F. Murray Abraham’s character brings his son on this hunt without telling him that the prey will be a human, with some such bullshit reasoning about making him a man, but all this does is endanger the entire criminal enterprise if the son doesn’t go along with this madness and then informs the authorities.
• This movie may be a cheap imitation of “The Most Dangerous Game” but it does include a nice trophy room scene.

 

Not since Futurama, have I seen a better collection of heads in jars.

As a connoisseur of adaptations of “The Most Dangerous Game” this entry left me sorely disappointed and questioning why I even bothered to invest my time in it. Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson, Surviving the Game attempts to blend action, suspense and survival elements into a cohesive narrative but it ultimately falls flat on its face. The script simply fails to deliver characters that are beyond one dimension, as if giving “tragic backstories” is enough to keep us invested. And let’s not forget the dialogue these actors were forced to spew out, which ranges from cringe-worthy to downright laughable. Even with their sinister monologues and menacing stares, this group is about as threatening as a Boy Scout troop. The great Rutger Hauer comes across like a discount Bond villain who is auditioning for a community theatre production. You almost expect him to twirl his moustache and cackle maniacally at any moment.

 

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain”

This a far cry from Rutger Hauer’s villainous turns as android Roy Batty in Blade Runner or the psychopath John Ryder from The Hitcher, two films where he gave us truly memorable antagonists, opposed to here where he’s just playing a rich schmuck who gets his kicks chasing men through the woods.  Much of the film’s problems are due to Eric Bernt screenplay, which to begin with isn’t that interesting of take on such a well-worn premise and worse is that it wastes a great cast as it gives them very little to do. In fact, the only real interesting moment in the film is when Gary Busey gives this bizarre dinner monologue about the origin of his character’s scar, which Busey wrote and not Bernt. It’s a right bonkers speech and Busey completely commits to it, sadly, he’s the first hunter to lose to Mason and thus the chances of further moments of lunatic genius are gone.

 

“I knew I shouldn’t have overshadowed the screenwriter.”

To make matters worse, the film’s attempts at social commentary feel forced and heavy-handed. The portrayal of the wealthy elites as heartless hunters preying on the less fortunate is ham-fisted and lacks nuance, coming across as little more than a cheap attempt to add depth to an otherwise shallow storyline. The action sequences, which should have been the film’s saving grace are poorly executed and lack any sense of tension or excitement. The choreography is clumsy and the special effects are downright amateurish. It’s clear that the filmmakers were trying to emulate the success of other action-packed survival movies, but they missed the mark by a wide margin. On the plus side, the movie is shot on location at Lake Wenatchee and Wenatchee National Forest so if nothing else, we get some nice scenery to look at.  At least when someone’s not chewing it.

 

“I forget, which one of us is the crazier one?”

In conclusion, Surviving the Game is a forgettable mess of a movie that fails to deliver on its promising premise – any fans of Richard Connell’s short story or its many adaptations will find nothing here of worth.  So save yourself the time and frustration and skip this wilderness fiasco altogether. There are far better survival thrillers out there deserving of your attention.