Gamer

Games need rules and structures. In Gamer, we're introduced to a futuristic video game of sorts that seems to be built upon total chaos, and is not that interesting to watch. Well, maybe it would be interesting to watch if writers and directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank and its recent sequel, Crank: High Voltage) could keep the camera steady long enough for us to see what we're supposed to be looking at. The visual style in this movie is next to incoherent, and the cliched, half-baked script doesn't come across much better.

But, back to the game itself. It's called "Slayers", and in the futuristic world this movie is set in, it's a world-wide phenomenon. It's a game where players control a living person in combat. The "characters" that are being controlled are all death row inmates. They're thrown into what looks like hand-me-down sets from other action movies, and forced to fight each other. The thing is, the convicts can only do what the player controlling them tells them to do. How does this work? The movie gives us an explanation that sounds scientific and has something to do with replacing parts of the brain, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Neither does the game itself, as there seems to be no base rules or guidelines. I understand that it's kill or be killed, but the inmates fighting and the players controlling them frequently seem to be able to bend the rules at will without any explanation. Just when we think we're starting to understand the thing, the movie changes the rules on us. There appears to be a vague goal (reach a "save point" before you get killed), but it's never really established. No one ever seems to run out of ammo, either. Where's the tension in that?

The mastermind behind Slayers is an evil and reclusive billionaire named Ken Castle. He's played by Michael C. Hall from TV's Dexter, and despite Hall's efforts, he never comes across as a genuine threat or as a real character. He disappears for most of the movie, so when he returns for the final showdown with the hero at the end, we almost forget he was in the movie in the first place. But then, characterizations are not this film's strong suit. The main character, Kable (Gerard Butler) is a convict who has become the best player in the history of the game, due to the fact that he's being controlled by a teenage gaming wiz named Simon (Logan Lerman). We learn next to nothing about either character. They're just empty shells, and seem to be the heroes by default. Kable has some kind of past pain that the movie keeps on hinting at. He has a wife (Amber Valletta) and daughter waiting for him in the outside world, and hopes he can earn his freedom, as if any convict can survive 30 rounds of the game, he or she gets released. This is all we're pretty much allowed to know about Kable. He's not so much a character, as he is a person who can hold onto a gun and run. He's the main character because the script says he is, not because we develop any sort of emotional attachment to him.

Kable is able to escape from prison and the game with the help of an underground resistance movement that is trying to stop the evil Castle. They hang out in an abandoned video arcade, and have access to technology that can not only overrule Kable's control mechanism so he can move on his own whenever he wants, but also can apparently bring Castle down. Once again, don't ask how or why. The movie just keeps on tossing ideas out there, and then just lets them fend for themselves. It's easy to feel overwhelmed while watching this movie. The non-stop chaotic action sequences are all but interchangeable, and also incoherent, thanks to the numerous tight shots and rapid-fire editing style. Gamer also keeps on throwing characters our way, but forgets to give anything to go along with them. Rapper Ludacris is the head of the resistance, John Leguizamo turns up as an inmate, and Kyra Sedgwick is a talk show host who gets wrapped up in the whole situation. They enter the story seemingly at random, and exit just as abruptly, sometimes with no resolution whatsoever. Also random is the point the movie seems to be making, as it seems to change in each scene. Is it about futuristic violent sports? Is it a comment on mankind's over-reliance on technology? Is it trying to be critical about our over crowded prisons and even our health care system? The movie tries to be all of this, and fails, because the ideas are dropped as soon as they seem to enter the characters' heads.

I said the movie was overwhelming, but it also manages to be underwhelming. The performances, for one, are not the least bit convincing. Butler looks tortured and pained, but he never says or does anything of interest in the entire movie. Come to think of it, I don't think he hardly says anything during the film's first half hour or so. He just shoots people, and looks depressed. Everyone else is obviously cashing a paycheck, given the final result up on the screen. This is what happens when you cast a bunch of actors adrift in a screenplay that seems to have been barely finished, let alone started. The way the plot jumps around, you get the sense that large parts of the script were misplaced, or were butchered in the editing room. That could explain why there are so many inexplicable scenes in this movie, such as Kable's final showdown with Castle, which starts out as a song and dance number that seems somewhat inspired by West Side Story.

It'd be bad enough if Gamer was a trashy movie, but it's an incoherently trashy movie. I tried to follow this thing, I really did. The film will obviously have its defenders, but they'll have to make huge leaps of logic just to sort it all out. I say it's not worth the effort. Anyone who tries will put a lot more thought toward this movie than the filmmakers ever did.

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