Game (film, 1997)

Nicholas Van Orton, a wealthy investment banker , has drifted away from his ex-wife and younger brother Conrad. He is haunted by the suicide of his father, who on his 48th birthday jumped from the roof of a family mansion. Soon, the 48th birthday will have to be celebrated by Nicholas himself. Conrad makes an appointment with him at the restaurant and makes a strange gift - a certificate for using the services of the company "Entertainment Service" ( English Consumer Recreation Services, CRS ), which offers its customers to play a certain "Game". Conrad promises that this will change the life of his brother, as he has changed his own life. Nicholas goes to the CRS office to apply, and after a long and difficult series of psychological and physical examinations, gives his consent to take part in this “ Game ”.

Nicholas doubts CRS, but meets in a bar two fellow bankers who accidentally mention this company in a conversation. They say that they have already played, and envy Van Orton, who is only ahead. He was later informed that the application was rejected. Soon, Nicholas begins to believe that his business, reputation, finances and security are at risk. He runs into a waitress, Christina, who seems to know something about the game. Nicholas contacts the police to investigate the activities of the CRS, but she finds the offices abandoned; the owner of the building claims that nobody used them for a long time.

In the end, Conrad appears before Nicholas and apologizes, claiming that he too was attacked by CRS. Not knowing where else to seek help, Nicholas finds Christine's house. Christina tells Nicholas they are being watched. Nicholas breaks the security camera, and armed CRS fighters open fire and begin the assault on Christina's house. Nicholas and Christina are forced to flee. Christina tells Nicholas that the CRS drained his financial bills, using psychological tests to guess his passwords. In a panic, Nicholas, in the presence of Christina, calls his bank, calls a secret code to check the balance of his account, and finds out that there is nothing left. As soon as he begins to trust Van Orton to Christine, he realizes that a staging was prepared in her apartment, she is an employee of CRS and pumped him drugs. Already losing consciousness, he hears Christina’s confession: in fact, she is part of a big scam and he made a fatal mistake by naming his verification code out loud ...

Nicholas wakes up and finds himself buried alive in a cemetery in Mexico . Once out, he sells his gold watch to get home. Upon returning, Van Orton discovers an auction ad at the gates of his mansion, most of his property seized. In the hotel where Conrad lives, he is informed that his brother was placed in a psychiatric hospital due to a nervous breakdown. Having penetrated into his own house, Nicholas takes out a revolver from the cache and turns to his ex-wife for help. Talking to her and apologizing for his neglect, in a random bar, he watches TV out of the corner of his eye and suddenly discovers that Jim Feingold, a CRS employee who conducted psychological tests with him, is just an actor acting in television commercials. Nicholas catches up with Feingold at the zoo with his children and forces him to take himself to the real CRS office, where he takes hostage Kristina. Van Orton demands that he be led to the CRS leader. Attacked by the CRS security service, Nicholas leads Christine to the roof of the building and locks the door behind them; the guards begin to cut through her autogenous. Christina suddenly realizes with horror that Nicholas’s pistol is not a props from the "Game" (it turns out that he was supposed to take the gun from the "guard"), but a real weapon. She is desperately trying to convince Nicholas that the conspiracy is a hoax , a fiction that is part of the game, that his finances are not touched, that all the disasters that happened to him were arranged and insured, at her house they shot at blanks, and his family and friends are waiting on the other side doors with champagne to congratulate him on his birthday, but he refuses to believe her.

The door swings open and the distraught Nicholas shoots at the first person who comes in - it turns out to be Konrad with an open bottle of champagne, which is effectively broken by a bullet. "He is dead. They joked ... ”- said the shocked Feingold. He and Christina, who remained on an empty roof with Van Orton and the corpse of Conrad, state with horror - all the preparations, all the rehearsals are worthless, and they are all waiting for the prison. Devastated by grief, Nicholas wanders to the edge of the roof and rushes down. Like once his father ...

And, having broken through the glass roof of the banquet hall, it lands safely on a pre-prepared safety cushion in front of the shocked guests. “It’s fortunate that you yourself jumped, otherwise I should have pushed you,” says Feingold, smiling.

The final scene shows a brilliantly organized and very crowded - it turns out, if you take a closer look, around the unsociable Nicholas Van Orton there are a lot of nice and dear to him people - a celebration of Nicholas’s birthday, and Conrad, safe and sound, congratulates his brother along with the actors from CRS who turn out to be absolutely everyone he met since the start of the Game - bankers, random companions, taxi drivers, and bandits. Conrad shows Nicholas a huge bill for services, and he agrees to split it into two.

After all, CRS fulfilled its promise - Nicholas has changed and, as it seems, he seems to himself, obviously for the better. For the “former” Nicholas Van Orton, the very idea that he could run away from his own birthday to have a cup of coffee at the airport, seeing Christina (in fact her name Claire) to Australia, for the new Game would seem wild to her ...

• 1998 - Saturn Award for Best Action / Adventure Movie / Thriller

• Review and review of the movie Roger Ebert