The brilliant short story "The Most Dangerous Game" has inspired and spawned so many movies that there ought to be an official sub-genre for it - maybe something like "MDG movies" or "MO-DA". There must be dozens out there: the original "The Most Dangerous Game", "The Hunted", "Mean Guns", "Bloodlust", etc. "Among the most energetic and involving in the genre are John Woo's update, "Hard Target", and this movie, "Surviving The Game", which also capitalizes on the idea of "hunting homeless people for sport".
STG was my first introduction to Ice T as an actor, and I have to admit that I was impressed. He plays his role with a nice mixture of toughness, sadness, misery, and humor, and he does it with hardly a false or unconvincing note in the entire movie. Some of the credit may go to the screenplay, because he was pretty stiff in "Mean Guns", but he holds center stage here like a natural.
The rest of the cast is also quite strong, with Rutger Hauer and Charles Dutton especially giving convincing, memorable performances. The characters they play are human monsters, but they enjoy themselves so much, take such glee in their roles as "mighty hunters", that the repulsiveness and ugliness of what they are doing almost takes a back seat to the "strategy and tactics" war games they play with their prey. Almost. But it takes a special talent to invest these yuppie scum with energy and charisma to keep them interesting, and the director and actors all deserve kudos for what they pull off here.
Here's the strength of the screenplay - You come to understand that Ice T's character is actually quite shrewd and resourceful and is a born survivor, but he also out of his element and heavily outnumbered; while the hunting party is complacent and smug, but they are completely ruthless, vastly more experienced at this game. AND they have all the guns. Ice T is no martial arts superman, (like JCVD in "Hard Target"), and his opponents are not professional killers, so the odds are far more even, but the stakes are just as high. It's a very nice balancing of tension vs. hope, and determination and wits against numbers and skill.
Of course, if the movie looked bad, or sounded crappy, much of the impact would be lost. I'm a big fan of Copeland's soundtracks, and he comes through here with his usual ringing, chiming, supple and plangent atmospheric backgrounds that are worth listening to for their own sake. And the cinematography in the woods of Oregon is heartbreakingly beautiful - even as the tension and danger mount, the eye is captured by the light and the scenery and the colors.
There are a couple weak spots in the movie, of course. John McGinty's character is completely stupid (although he plays him well), and the scene in the cave where T and McGinty reveal their back-stories to each other is completely uninspired and by-the-numbers. The shifting of momentum between the hunter and the hunted doesn't quite work - you have to kind of suspend disbelief at a couple of points near the end where Murray Abraham's character starts to "lose it". And I have a hard time believing that Hauer's character, once he returns to the city, doesn't simply go to ground and lay a clever ambush for T instead of packing everything to flee the city and start over elsewhere. (Of course, it could be argued that he tried setting a trap in the final scene set in the woods, and it didn't work then.)
But as action-adventure movies go, and as 'MGD' movies go, this is a keeper that holds up to repeating viewings. I bought it used on DVD several years ago after my initial rental, and I have watched it and enjoyed it at least half-a-dozen times since then.
STG was my first introduction to Ice T as an actor, and I have to admit that I was impressed. He plays his role with a nice mixture of toughness, sadness, misery, and humor, and he does it with hardly a false or unconvincing note in the entire movie. Some of the credit may go to the screenplay, because he was pretty stiff in "Mean Guns", but he holds center stage here like a natural.
The rest of the cast is also quite strong, with Rutger Hauer and Charles Dutton especially giving convincing, memorable performances. The characters they play are human monsters, but they enjoy themselves so much, take such glee in their roles as "mighty hunters", that the repulsiveness and ugliness of what they are doing almost takes a back seat to the "strategy and tactics" war games they play with their prey. Almost. But it takes a special talent to invest these yuppie scum with energy and charisma to keep them interesting, and the director and actors all deserve kudos for what they pull off here.
Here's the strength of the screenplay - You come to understand that Ice T's character is actually quite shrewd and resourceful and is a born survivor, but he also out of his element and heavily outnumbered; while the hunting party is complacent and smug, but they are completely ruthless, vastly more experienced at this game. AND they have all the guns. Ice T is no martial arts superman, (like JCVD in "Hard Target"), and his opponents are not professional killers, so the odds are far more even, but the stakes are just as high. It's a very nice balancing of tension vs. hope, and determination and wits against numbers and skill.
Of course, if the movie looked bad, or sounded crappy, much of the impact would be lost. I'm a big fan of Copeland's soundtracks, and he comes through here with his usual ringing, chiming, supple and plangent atmospheric backgrounds that are worth listening to for their own sake. And the cinematography in the woods of Oregon is heartbreakingly beautiful - even as the tension and danger mount, the eye is captured by the light and the scenery and the colors.
There are a couple weak spots in the movie, of course. John McGinty's character is completely stupid (although he plays him well), and the scene in the cave where T and McGinty reveal their back-stories to each other is completely uninspired and by-the-numbers. The shifting of momentum between the hunter and the hunted doesn't quite work - you have to kind of suspend disbelief at a couple of points near the end where Murray Abraham's character starts to "lose it". And I have a hard time believing that Hauer's character, once he returns to the city, doesn't simply go to ground and lay a clever ambush for T instead of packing everything to flee the city and start over elsewhere. (Of course, it could be argued that he tried setting a trap in the final scene set in the woods, and it didn't work then.)
But as action-adventure movies go, and as 'MGD' movies go, this is a keeper that holds up to repeating viewings. I bought it used on DVD several years ago after my initial rental, and I have watched it and enjoyed it at least half-a-dozen times since then.