SURVIVING THE GAME - * * - Rutger Hauer, Ice-T, Charles S. Dutton, William McNamara, Gary Busey, F. Murray Abraham; rated R (violence, gore, profanity, vulgarity, drugs); Carmike Plaza 5400 Theaters, Cinemark Sandy Movies 9, Cineplex Odeon Crossroads Plaza and Holladay Center Cinemas, Redwood Drive-in (with "Man's Best Friend").
NO ESCAPE - * * - Ray Liotta, Lance Henriksen, Stuart Wilson, Kevin Dillon, Kevin J. O'Connor, Michael Lerner, Ernie Hudson; rated R (violence, gore, profanity, vulgarity, brief nudity); Carmike Creekside Plaza Theaters, Cineplex Odeon Broadway Centre, Midvalley and South Towne Center Cinemas, the Gateway Theaters, Redwood Drive-in (with "Lightning Jack"), the Reel Theaters."Surviving the Game" and "No Escape" are action films that opened last weekend without the benefit of advance screenings for critics, relying instead on TV ads featuring lots of explosions to get the word out.
Both pictures seem to be aimed directly at the male audience that usually dominates theaters showing such films. (In fact, neither film has any women among their respective cast members.)
And in the case of "No Escape," the ads apparently did the trick: "No Escape" earned $4.6 million to become the No. 1 movie in the country this week.
- "SURVIVING THE GAME" is a rehash of the oft-filmed yarn "The Most Dangerous Game," about wealthy big-game hunters who pay big bucks for an opportunity to stalk human prey. (Last year Jean-Claude Van Damme starred in another version of the same story, "Hard to Kill.")
In this case, the victim is a despondent homeless man named Mason (Ice-T), who is wandering the streets of Seattle, eating out of trash bins and generally feeling sorry for himself because he lost his family in an accident, which he feels he could have prevented.
One day, after his best friend dies, Mason attempts suicide by stepping in front of a truck. But he is rescued by Cole (Charles S. Dutton), a volunteer at a homeless shelter, who offers Mason a job as a hunting guide.
Mason protests that he doesn't know anything about being a hunting guide, but Cole assures him that he's just the man for the job, if his partner, Burns (Rutger Hauer), agrees. Mason gets the job, of course, and the next day finds himself in Washington State's Northwestern National Forest with a party of enthusiastic hunters - wild-eyed CIA psychiatrist Hawkins (Gary Busey), even wilder-eyed Texas oil millionaire Griffin (John C. McGinley), aggressive Wall Street executive Wolf Sr. (F. Murray Abraham) and Wolf's naive son Derrick (William McNamara).
The next morning, Mason is rudely awakened from a sound sleep, informed that he is the animal to be hunted, and he's given a head start to run off into the woods. Cole, Burns, Hawkins, Griffin and Wolf Sr. are giddy and excited, but Derrick is appalled . . . until his father explains that he has no choice but to join in.
You can guess the rest, which is composed of one confrontation after another as Mason kills off these predators.
First-time screenwriter Eric Bernt doesn't provide any particular twists on the story, and director Ernest Dickerson ("Juice") moves the action in a rudimentary fashion. (Dutton's death scene is particularly outrageous and disgusting.)
What does inject some life into the proceedings is the central performance by Ice-T, who is refreshingly realistic as a sour, disil-lu-sioned, disenfranchised victim who must resort to his wits to survive.
Though the other characters are stereotypes, the fine supporting cast is enjoyable, if over the top. But all of them seem subtle compared to McGinley, who so overplays his role that he seems to think he's in a National Lampoon spoof.
"Surviving the Game" is rated R for violence, gore, profanity, vulgarity and marijuana smoking.
- "NO ESCAPE" is a mindless wilderness survival picture crossed with the prison-escape genre, set in the future and dressed up to look like the "Mad Max" movies, which made an international star of Mel Gibson.
But in addition to Gibson's charisma, the "Mad Max" pictures also had an incredible sense of style, both in terms of dressing and action, with stunts that still are nothing short of amazing.
"No Escape," however, is just a B-movie with a big-budget look, though without any particularly notable elements.
Ray Liotta, in a change-of-pace role that seems more suited to the likes of Stallone or Schwarz-en-eg-ger, plays an emotionless tough guy, a military veteran who killed his commanding officer. He has escaped from two high-security prisons and, as the film opens, he is being transported to an international top-security facility, where computers in the walls hear the prisoners' thoughts.
And nearby is a remote jungle island called Absolom, where the sadistic warden (Michael Lerner) illegally places his most troublesome inmates. There, two factions have developed, the Insiders, a group of peaceful farmers who have forged their own benign community, and the Outsiders, a group of crazed savages who seem bent on destroying the Insiders.
The Insiders are led by a kindly old surgeon, played by Lance Henriksen, who more often plays the villains in movies like this. The Outsiders are led by zany Stuart Wilson, who cracks one-liners and sings Christmas carols as he guts his enemies, proving that he's seen Alan Rickman's one-of-a-kind bad guy in "Die Hard" a few too many times.
Liotta does manage to give the film a more rooted presence than it might have if he weren't around, but there's only so much acting you can inject into a series of big scenes that give emphasis to violence and explosions. The mentality is, "Why just have a burning arrow hit someone in the chest when you can have it go into his open mouth?" (Ernie Hudson also tries in vain to lend a little class to the proceedings, as Henriksen's right-hand man.)
First-time screenwriters Michael Gaylin and Joel Gross have seen a lot of other movies for inspiration, and director Martin Campbell ("Criminal Law," "Defense-less") shows a flair for big action sequences with lots of extras - but it's apparent he has also seen too many other, better films. And none of them help the actors lend any depth to the obvious stereotypes at work here.
"No Escape" is rated R for violence, gore, profanity, vulgarity and some brief nudity.