Surviving the Game (1994)
Genre: Action
Format Viewed: Digital Cable
Filmography links and data courtesy of The Internet Movie Database.
It’s amazing what you’ll find on TV at two o’clock on the morning…
Just for the record, I don’t normally make it a point to watch movies with Ice-T or Ice Cube or Shaved Vanilla Ice or any other rappers turned actors for that matter. In fact, seeing Iced Anything in the opening credits is usually enough to make me switch the channel pretty darned quick. But in this case, I guess you could say that I was just overcome with whatever overcomes a person at 2:00am that slows the remote control hand down enough to actually give a flick this Surviving the Game a fighting chance! And just between you and me, I’m still not sure that I made the right choice!
Point blank – this movie is f*^#$’d up.
How else would you describe a movie in which a bunch of rednecks hire a homeless man to act as a “guide” on their “hunting expedition” in the wilderness, only to then show their true selves once they arrive by turning their guns on the poor sap and telling him that if he makes it back to civilization … from the middle of nowhere, by plane … then he gets to live! I never thought I’d find myself actually feeling sorry for Ice-T, but I suppose when reduced to a manhunt, I can come to pity just about anyone. Especially when he finds the jar that his own head is supposed to be in?! Damn…
Now I know that it might sound like I’ve ruined the movie, but is it really possible to ruin a movie that’s this bad in the first place??? Well, I guess you’ll just have to watch it for yourself to find out! I think what ultimately drew me in was watching Charles Dutton play who seemed to be a nice, black man who loved the Lord and helping people, which is why I was a bit shocked to see not long after him put a gun to Ice-T’s head and explain their little “game” to the now scared-shitless man. He was really the only one who threw me, though – Gary Busey’s character was pretty predictable because the man himself is an absolute nut job, John McGinley I really only recognized as one of the Bobs from Office Space, but still played crazy just the same, and all the rest just sort of fell in line as well. I didn’t really see the point of the kid being there … ever … except possibly if they thought that they needed some voice of reason amongst the chaos, but it’s a stretch.
And the ending didn’t really make a lick of sense, either, but I just wrote that part off by assuming that Ice-T writes into all of his contracts that he gets to walk away saying something cool in the last scene, or at least something that he thinks is cool. That said, I certainly wouldn’t go out in search of this movie on any given night, nor would I probably even waste a slot in my NetFlix queue for it, but when all of your other options have been spent and it’s easier to continue watching whatever drivel happens to be on than it is to get up and walk the ten feet into the bedroom, Ice-T has never been better.
I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.
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