Wesley Snipes is Marcus, a CIA operative tasked with gaining the trust of Robert Davi’s shady arms dealer, Mr Smith so that when Mr Smith meets up with the corrupt hedge fund manager with whom Smith is working, he can take them both out. Six months later, Marcus is Smith’s head of security and they are on their way to a meeting, when the hedge fund manager will hand over 0m to Smith. Smith suffers a heart-attack on the way there, before the rest of Marcus’s team then intervene, having decided they would rather steal the 0m than see through the mission as originally intended. Marcus must fight off his own team, as well as wrestle with his conscience over all that he has done as a “special operative”.
*****
I was determined to come to Game of Death with an open mind. I have been a big fan of Snipes for years, having enjoyed not just his fighting prowess but also his acting abilities, in everything from New Jack City and White Men Can’t Jump, through The Waterdance, Demolition Man, Passenger 57 and the first two Blade films. It was clear that Game of Death was very much a straight to DVD film, however that need not be the kiss of death, as I found during my many years in the early and mid-90’s of visiting my local video store and stumbling upon unknown gems with at least solid entertainment value, if not earth-shattering artistic merit.
Game of Death is though, a very disappointing and ultimately frustrating film. There is plenty of talent on board, both in terms of acting and action ability. Gary Daniels, who is Snipes’ right hand man-turned-nemesis, popped up in The Expendables and has been toiling away in films like this for years. He is an excellent martial artist and if not blessed with the greatest acting range, can at least play this sort of part well. Likewise Zoe Bell, who got a break of sorts in Death Proof, has ploughed a furrow of solid stunt work and is now getting the chance to show that she is not a bad actress either. Snipes, as we know, can act well and fight with the best of them, but here it all feels so lack-lustre. He just does not seem to be interested and his cool, casual confidence during the many fight scenes winds up coming off as indifference, an initial concern seemingly substantiated by his notable absence from the (admittedly limited) special features.
The various synopses for the film suggest that the film boils down to series of fights within the hospital where Davi’s Mr Smith is being treated for his heart attack, however that only takes us up to the hour mark, after which we move on to the vault of the hedge fund manager and a face-off that quickly loses any tension, momentum or internal logic. The fight scenes are competently handled, in that everyone knows what they are doing and no doubt the ease with which Snipes dispatches the assorted punch-bags that cross his path is intended to portray and display the peerless ability of his character, but there is no exhilaration to be found or experienced, no tension as to how the fights will progress and as noted earlier, little evidence of emotional investment from Snipes himself.
The director, Giorgio Serafini, seems to be trying to include as many visual quirks and ticks as possible, so we get vision blurring, sped up and slowed down footage, grainy film stock and flash-backs, but it seems at odds with the style and tone of the film. There is of course nothing wrong with artistic ambitions and just because a film is a formulaic actioner does not mean it need be lazily or unimaginatively photographed, but the constant shifts in filming style simply serve to accentuate and draw attention to how bland and routine the underlying film itself is proving to be.
The film is bookended by a conversation between Marcus and a Catholic priest, played by Ernie Hudson, as Marcus tries to come to terms with his feelings of guilt and remorse. The acting in these sections is good enough and it is refreshing to see a cold killer in a run of the mill action film expressing some sort of sense of moral quandary, however the fact that Marcus is narrating a story to a priest after the event, tends to suck any dramatic tension out of scenes showing Marcus seemingly cornered or trapped. Ultimately, we also question the whole plot itself. Snipes is trying to stop his cohorts stealing $100m from men he is tasked with killing. Why is it okay for him to kill them, but not for his friends to take their money? Why doesn’t he kill his targets and leave his friends to try to make their escape? There is, it seems, a fundamental problem here in deciding that of the two criminal acts in view (robbery and murder), the only one that is permitted is the one intended by the protagonist.
Perhaps these are questions that I am over-thinking, however it is all part of the general feeling of dissonance with which the film leaves you. It does not feel convincing or logical or thought-through and although it possible to be in the mood for a mindless action film and to enjoy it on those terms, I was not in such a mood when I watched it and was ultimately unable to get past the niggles and frustrations set out above.
If you are in the right frame of mind and are happy to be entertained, this might be your thing, though you may want to keep your finger on the skip button to jump from fight scene to fight scene.
[Rating:1.5/5]
***
Extras: Not much to see here. A trailer that is very much by the numbers and what purports to be a “making of” but is really a fluff piece consisting of everyone saying how great they all were to work with, how great a time they had, hinting at the director coming on board at the last minute and singing the praises of the tax breaks available for filming in Detroit. Uninformative, but mercifully brief.
[Rating:1/5]
