Gamer Review

Gamer is one of those movies that a lot of people misunderstand.  Some people think of the film as one that hates its audience, and I can understand why.  The main point of attack in the film is the question of violence: why do we enjoy watching fictional representations of violence, and should we feel sorry or apologetic for this behavior?

The film responds with a seemingly outstanding "yes, you should feel guilty for this behavior", which is the main point of argument with the film.

The film opens strong, with a collection of modified images from another film, Baraka.  Much of this strength is, by virtue of this, borrowed from this highly visual film, but the modifications coupled with the ever-eerie Marilyn Manson song, Sweet Dreams, create a nice atmosphere that, unfortunately, is little more than a montage hinting at story points.  The imagery of the opening sequence has little to do with the rest of the film, with the exception that the main antagonist  has his face plastered all across the global images of Ron Fricke's film.

The main premise of the film is the "what if?" scenario of controlling humans.  The world offers two alternative ways of controlling a human individual: one is what appears to be a perpetual rave called "Society" which feels like a bad drug trip, and seems to take its main themes from a combination of rave culture and internet chat culture, complete with avatars and Second Life-style modifications.  The filmmakers obviously feel that there is a specifically frightening aspect of this lifestyle, and the strongest display of their argument is a large, obviously internet-addicted hobbit that trolls the environment with a female "avatar".

The avatars in the film are seen as humans themselves.  It is unclear whether the film is arguing that we should take our expression with these avatars more seriously-- by removing the anonymity of internet culture-- or take them less seriously and actually move out into the real world, and live life on our own.

The second alternative lifestyle is an action game called Slayers.   This is the source of the majority of the action in the film, and is also the source of some of the most chaotic A.D.H.D.-raddled editing I have seen in a long time.  Sometimes the film's editing borders on musical, other times it is so chaotic it is difficult to tell what is going on.

One could argue that this editing style matches the chaos of the battlefield, but I feel that this argument is relatively weak.  I am reminded of an acting teacher who told me, "you can't play bored by being bored.  You will be too effective and bore your audience, and will just be a lump of motionless flesh on the screen.  You can only play bored by never keeping your attention on any one thing for very long, constantly moving your attention from place to place."  The lesson was that one must not simply make an artistic choice for realism, there must be an artistic decision behind each and every action.  Confusion and boredom are two very uncomfortable experiences, and as such, filmmakers should be very careful when trying to make the audience feel these emotions, and I feel the filmmakers of Gamer were just not cautious in this regards and sometimes confused for the sake of confusing.

That is the weak part of the film.  However, for the strengths of the film, I must point out: the display of how people treat their internet anonymity through the use of avatars, or how people live vicariously through digital characters in a video game, may not choose a moral stance, but are accurate to the point of being sometimes hilarious (such as the "tea-bagging" scene early in the film), and often creepy.

The film has a very distinct visual feel, which somehow feels very claustrophobic even when its in the open.  There is constantly the feeling that the characters are in enclosed spaces, and there is no feeling of freedom to be felt in any of the film's environment.  This gives a very clustered, very chaotic feel that is hard to explain in words and must be experienced to understand.

Another strength of the film is Gerard Butler's endearing performance.  He offers little new to the action protagonist in terms of what he is given in his script; he predictably strives to save his loved ones and, also predictably, is reluctant to help people with anything else.  However, Butler gives the film a lot of heart, and what little meat he is given to express, he expresses perfectly.

Ludacris has a performance that similarly is stilted by the script; his performance is not weak, per se, but does not feel deep.  He delivers what he has with heart and gusto, but there just does not feel like there is much depth to his little covert operation.  I do not feel like there are goals of the Humanz (the fictional counter-culture pirates in the film), with the possible exception of "screw up Ken Castle's business."  There does not feel like this organization has a history of previous victories and losses, and I feel this is less any flaws by the actors and more a lacklustre art direction.

And let's talk Michael C. Hall. He is one of my favorite new actors, and his performance is as strong as you would expect.  With the possible exception of a horrible redneck accent that is most obviously a reference to an infamous, power-hungry president whose name rhymes with Mush. Hall's performance in Gamer actually is quite a bright light in the film.  There is just something interesting and charismatic about him in everything he does, and it is easy to see why he was chosen for this film.  It is a bit disappointing, however, that he gets so little screen-time.  It would be interesting seeing him do more than languish in comfort, dance, reveal his (admittedly) diabolical scheme... and I will not spoil what happens, though the film is predictable enough so that you can probably take a guess and hit the nail on the head.

This is where Gamer suffers horribly.  It does not try to be brave and new in any way, and all characters feel shallow and empty even where the actors are doing their best to give the characters life.  A few very strong performances from the actors mentioned are certainly a highlight, and are so well done that I cannot avoid recommending them to be seen, but here I am definitely supporting the actors more than the script.

Simply put, the script is too predictable.  It goes into some interesting territory with its "what if?" premise, and the "what if" nature of it actually brings up some interesting plot points, but they are simply too little.  It is the same with the general art direction... there is nothing wrong with it per se, and in fact, the set pieces often are quite impressive, making the viewer wonder how they made such wide-reaching, destroyed landscapes.  But try to see beyond the fight, and you will find, to use a video game term, an invisible wall.  There is no past in this world... no forethought made into how the world became as it is.

And it shows.  It would be interesting, for example, to see hints at previous Humanz activity.  Even the backstory of how the female counter-culturalist manages to break into the protagonist's prison block would have been interesting.

I hesitate to not recommend Gamer, because what it does do, it does well.  However, I cannot help but point out that what it does not do, you can feel as a deep lacking.

A nice production value, wonderful performances, but just not enough depth to help you sink into this world.

I give Gamer a rating of C.  It does not fail, but it does not do well either.