What exactly is a "reindeer game?" It's the title of the movie, there is a point in the script where Gary Sinise's painfully ridiculous villain exclaims: "don't be playing those reindeer games on me...." and still it is never explained!! Reindeer games is a pitiful mess of a feature, guaranteed to be one of the worst movies of the year. So seldom are action movies invested with any sort of novelty or wit nowadays, that it is sad to imagine some people may actually enjoy this film. After solid work on RONIN, another John Frankenheimer thriller seemed promising, but it is every bit as bad as his ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. Crude, unnatural camera angles. Awkward performances from all involved and a sloppy repetitive plot that exploits its audience in the most insulting way. Why does Chelize Theron take her clothes off twice in this movie? Why is it that Gary Sinise is walking around in sleeveless shirts all the time in the middle of Winter? (Perhaps because he appears to have been working out and wanted to show off?) The entire plot consists of a juvenile mistaken identity gag, played over and over as Sinise holds a gun to Affleck's head every fifteen minutes and threatens to kill him before instead changing his mind and agreeing to let him live. The entire movie is one big mess penned by the writer of Arlington Road and Scream 3. Ehren Kreuger is shaping up to be Hollywood's king of plot holes, just the same way Akiva Goldsman became the king of bad Hollywood one-liners. But the biggest letdown is Frankenheimer, who should have known better than to take on this pathetic project.
Review of Reindeer Games
