1997 Michael Douglas Film

'The Game' will play you like a violin made of Monopoly boards

David Fincher movies have a look to them. Specifically, they often have the look of a place that is made of blue, yellow, and dirt. Other times, they are filmed in a world made of dirt and more dirt, which actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. It's an aesthetic that's perfect for the high-class grime of 1997's The Game .

Multimillionaire businessman Michael Douglas has it all and is bored of it all. To shake him out of his ennui, his no-good brother Sean Penn buys him a spot in a mysterious game. With a series of frightening events leaving Douglas unable to tell what's real and what's fake, he goes on the lam with waitress Deborah Kara Unger--and discovers the game may be an elaborate con to steal away his millions.

Last week's column covered Alien 3 , also directed by David Fincher, which says more about his ability to make interesting movies than it does about any thematic plans on my part. Those don't tend to run any deeper than "Oh dear, I have forgotten to eat for the last three days. May as well declare a retroactive hunger strike against those stupid yellow grass seeds that always get stuck in your socks so hard it makes you want to burn down your house."

The Game is both incredibly easy and incredibly hard to spoil. Easy because any real dissection of plot points could clue you in to the bigger picture. Hard because The Game has more twists, turns, and red herrings than a rollercoaster built by a crew of penguins with an inner ear problem. So I'll just say some of what happens is squint-worthy after the fact, but it doesn't really matter.

Because Fincher doesn't just have a look, he's got a mood. Among modern directors, he may be the best at boiling an atmosphere of confusion, paranoia, and dread without resorting to cheap tricks like spooky ghosts appearing to tell Douglas that the ghost of his mom sleeps around. In The Game , Fincher just lets detail after detail accumulate, most of which have no significance--but Douglas can't be certain. And neither can we. With these moments offered up at face value, the result is a panicked, stifling sense of mounting uncertainty.

The Game is a little too slick for its own good--on the slickness scale, it is somewhere between NYPD Blue David Caruso and a Wile E. Coyote oil spill--and there's not much to it beyond a really gripping thriller. But oh, wait--it's a really gripping thriller.

Ten Best Michael Douglas Movies | nascar news

Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987)

Michael Kirk Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on September 25, 1944. His first movie appearance came in father Kirk Douglas’ Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), in which he played an uncredited jeep driver. In 1969, Douglas made his official film debut in Hail, Hero!, appearing in the role of Carl Dixon.

Here are ten movies that no Michael Douglas fan should ever miss. Good movies never sleep, pal…

Wall Street (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1987)

Michael Douglas plays Gordon Gekko, a ruthless corporate raider who plunders his way to the top of the financial world. Douglas gives a tour de force performance as the amoral Gekko, using young Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) as his conduit for insider trading deals. Douglas’ Gekko, decked out in his trademark suspenders, tosses out a number of memorable one-liners, including this gem describing the business acumen of a colleague: “Jesus, if this guy owned a funeral parlor nobody would die.” Wall Street is Michael Douglas at his best, the bright, brash, savvy financial buccaneer sporting ,000 designer suits and an over inflated ego that eventually leads to his downfall.

Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (won) On DVD: Wall Street 20th Anniversary Edition (Twentieth Century-Fox, 2007).

Basic Instinct (TriStar, 1992)

Michael Douglas stars as Nick Curran, a damaged San Francisco police detective with past alcohol and drug problems. Curran’s latest case is the brutal ice pick slaying of an ex-rock star, which leads him to the beautiful, seductive crime novelist Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone). The vulnerable Douglas’ interaction with the erotic, dangerous Stone makes the movie, as the two slowly circle each other, eventually becoming lovers. The film features the legendary interrogation scene, with a heated Douglas and his fellow cops looking on as Sharon Stone coolly answers their pointed questions while smoking a cigarette and sporting a short white dress with no panties.

Great Douglas line (to George Dzundza’s Gus, after they find drugs at the murder scene of civic-minded ex-rocker Johnny Boz)): “It looks like some civic-minded, very respectable cocaine to me, Gus.

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