Reindeer Games

One thing is to suspend belief, another is to suspend one's intelligence, which is what this movie requires. This movie is so bad, it is actually funny, at times. Replete with a bad script and bad acting, it revolves around a convoluted plot that has so many twists and turns, as to simply not be believable. The casting is bad, as well. Ben Affleck as a hardened convict? Come on...give me a break! He is simply not a good enough actor to play against type, charming though he be.

Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck), a professional car thief who has just spent six years in the can, is looking forward to being released and returning to his family for Xmas. His cell mate of six years, Nick, is likewise looking forward to his own simultaneous release, so that he can join his beautiful girl friend and pen pal, Ashley (Charlize Theron), about whom he has talked to Rudy incessantly for years and to whom he has read all her letters. Unfortunately, two days before Nick's and Rudy's release, Nick is stabbed, ostensibly to death.

When Rudy leaves prison, he sees the beautiful Ashley waiting for Nick. Having heard all about her for years and feeling like he knows her, Rudy assumes Nick's identity, and hooks up with her. Unbeknownst to Rudy, Ashley has an evil brother (Gary Sinise). When Rudy meets him, somewhat unceromoniously, he forces Rudy to become part of a casino robbery, because he believe Rudy to be Nick and is counting on Nick's prior knowledge of the casino to help them plot the robbery. When Rudy confesses to not being Nick, Sinise does not believe him, and Rudy is forced to use his wits to stay alive.

The twists and turns continue. If you think the brother is evil, the viewer finds out that he has nothing on his sister, Ashley. Unfortunately, it gets so unbelievable, as to be ludicrous, and the movie spirals out of control. Like I said, it's so bad, it's funny. Rent it, Don't buy it.

This is one of the worst films of its time. I cannot believe Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, and Charlize Theron have this stinker on their resumes.... it must be an embarrassment for all three of them. The plot is completely implausible from the word go, Affleck's character has about a billion things he could do to escape that we're supposed to believe just never cross his mind, the plot twists are NOT clever (just stupid), there are gun mistakes in the film (guy firing with Uzi, the scene cuts away from him for a second, then cuts back to him and now he has a Mac-10, crap like that), and if you actually make it all the way to the end of the film (I wish to God I hadn't), the ending is so stupid you're like "I cannot believe I suffered through this entire piece of crap for THAT." Skip it...... trust me.

This movie is bad, boring, and confusing. There is one scene, near the end, where the plot is explained to us by a surprise guest. After explaining the plot the "hero" says, words to the effect, "you have to be kidding me!" I agree. What happened here? With some good stars and interesting effects, I am going to have to blame the director 1'st and the story second. For those of you not discouraged, read on.

The basic plot of the movie involves a car thief who gets out of prison after a two years stint. His good friend, who is to be released the same day as him, gets stabbed in jail. So, instead of them both being released on the same day, he goes home and his friend, presumably, goes to the morgue.

One problem, his friend's girlfriend, doesn't know about his death. She is waiting outside the prison for him after writing letters to him for 2 years. She has never seen him, she has only written letters to him after having gotten his name from some type of jail house support group. So the "hero" of this film, pretends to be his friend, hooks up with the girl and takes advantage of her. Sorta of. There are a few twists and turns here which are suppose to keep you interested, but they don't. Ben Afflect, who plays the "hero" is not very believable as a despicable con. He is acting and it shows. If you believed in his character, you almost wished something bad would happen to him. Well, something bad does so I guess the movie does give the audience a little bit of what it wants, but not much.

The only interesting thing is the acting of Gary Sinse. I think he did a great job, as normal. I first saw him in "The Stand" portraying a hero and leader of a small community fighting an evil demon. Here he is the evil demon, only he is a human being who is psychotic. In either role, we believe in the person who he creates even if we don't believe in the universe that we find him. Unfortunately no matter how good he does in this movie, the movie is not good enough to recommend. Save your money, and time, and skip to a different film.